LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2605, 12 August 1882, Page 4

LITERATURE.

ELI: OR THE OBSTINATE JURYMAN,

(Concludedi)

The j irymen broke up Into little knot*, tilted their chairs back, and settled into the easiest positions that their cramped quarters allowed. Moat of them lit their pipes ; tho captain, and tne or two whom he honoured, smoked fragrant cigars, and tho room was soon filled with a dense cloud cf smoke. £ll sat*loce by the window. Mr Bldrldge and Captain Thomas had drifted into a discussion of harbors, and tho captain had drawn bis chair np to the table, and with a cigar in his month, was explaining an ingeniously constructed foreign harbor. Ha waa tnaki’ g a rough sketch with a pen. ‘Here is north,’ he said; ‘here is the coast line; h-;re are the fists ; here are the sluice-gates; they store the water here, in—;— ’

Some of the younger men had their heads together, in a corner, abont the tin-pedlar, who was telling stories of people he had met in bis j mrneys, which^brought out repeated bursts of laughter. la the corner farthest from EH, a delicatelooking man began to tell the butcher about Eli’s wife.

‘Twelve years ago this fall,’ he said, ‘1 taught district-school in the parish where she lived. She was about fourteen then. Ber father was a poor farmer, without any faculty. Her mother was d- ad, and she kept house. I staid there one week, boarding ’round. She never raid much, but it used to divert me to see her order around her big brothers, just as if she waa their mother. She and I got to be great friends ; but she wr-s a queer piece.’ Then the foreman rapped upon the table. ‘ Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘ please draw your chairs up, and let ns take another ballot.’ The coant resulted as before. The foreman mattered something which had a scriptural sound. In a few moments he drew Mr Eldridge and two others aside.

‘Gentlemen,’ ho said to them, ‘I shall qniet’y divide the jury into watches under your charge ; ten can sleep, while one wakes to keep Mr Smith discussing the question. I don’t propote to have the night waste!." And, by one man or another, Eli was kept awake.

* I don’t se*,’ said a book-agent, * why you should /eel obliged to stick it out any longer. Of course, you are under obligations. But you’ve done more than enough already, so as that he can’t complain of you, and if yon give in now, everybody'll give you credit for trying to save your friend, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, for giving ia to the evidence. So you’ll get credit both ways. ’ An hour later, the tin-psdlar came on duty. He had not followed closely the story about John Wood’s loan, and had got it a little awry. ‘ Now, how foolish you be,’ he said. In a confidential tone ; ‘can’t you see that if yon oave in now, after s'au’n’ out nine hours’— and he looked at a silver watch with a braes chain, and stroked his goatee— ‘ nine hours and twenty-seven minutes —that you’ve made jest rumpus enough so aa’t he wont dare to foreclose oa yon, for fear they’ll say yon went back on a trade. On t’other band, if you hold clear out, he’ll turn yon ont-o’-doors to-morrow, fur a blind, so ’a to look as if there wa’n’t no trade between yon. Once he gits off, he wont know Joseph, you bat I That’s what I’d do,’ he added, with a sly laugh ; ‘ take your uncle's advice.’ ‘The only trouble with that,’ said El' - , shortly, ‘is that I don’t owe him anything.’ * Ob,’ said the pedlar ? ‘ that makes a difference. I understood yon did. ’ Three o’clock came, and brought Mr Eldridge. He found Eli worn out with excitement.

‘Now I doi’t judge yon the way others do,’ said Mr Eldridge, in a low tone, with his hand on Eli's knee ; ' 1 know, as I to’d yon, just the way you feel. But we oan’t help such things, b oppose, now, that I had kept dark, and allowed to the owners that that man was always sober, and 1 had heard, six months after, of thirty or forty men going to the bottom because the captain was a little off bis bam; and then to think of their wives and children at home. We have to do some ba d things ; but, I say, do the square thing, and let her slide.’ ‘ But I oan’t believe he’s guilty,’ said Eli. ‘ But don’t you allow,’ said Hr Eldridge, ‘ that eleven men are more sure to hit It right than one man ?’ * Yts,’ said Eli, roluotantly, ‘as a general thing.’ ‘ Well, there’s always got to be some give to a jury, just as In everything else, and you ought to lay right down on the rest of us. It isn’t as if we were at all aqnirmish. Now, you know that if you hold out, he’ll be tried again.’ ‘?ej, I suppose so.’ ‘Got to to no other way,’ said Mr Eldridge ; ‘ now, the next time, there wont be anybody like you to stand out, and the judgo T 1 know of this crape, [aad he'll just sock it to him.’ Ell turned uneasily ia hie chair. ‘ And then it won’t bo understood in your place, and folks ’ll turn against yon every way, and, what’s worse, let you alone,’ ‘I can't ttvnd it,’ said Ell, angrily; ‘let ’em do as they like. They oan’t kill me.’ • They can kill your wife and break down your children,’ said Mr EJ iti-^ e : women aad children caa’* stand: it. Now there’s man they were speaking ol; he lived down my way. He sued a poor, shiftless fellow that had acme from Pennsylvania to hia daughter’s funeral, and had him arrested and taken off, crying, jnat before the funeral began—after they’d even sat set the flowers on the coffin; and nobody’d speak to him after that—they just let him alone ; and after a while his wife took sick of it—she was a nice, kindly woman —and she had sort of hysterics, and, finally, he moved off West And ’twaent long before the woman died. Now, you can’t undertake [to do different from everybody else. ’ ‘ Well,’said Eli ; ‘ I know I wish it was done with. ’

Mr Bldridge at retched his arms and yawned. Taen he began to waik up and down, and hum, out of tune. Then he stopped at Captain Thomas’s chair. ‘ Suppose we try a ballot,’he said; ‘he seems to give a little.’ In a moment the foreman rapped. ‘lt Is time we were taking another ballot, gentlemen,’ he said. The sleepers rose, grumbling, from nueaay dreams.

* I will write * guilty’ on twelve ballots,’ said the foreman, * and if any one desires to write in ‘not,’ of course he cm.’ When the hat came to Eli, he took one of the ballots and held it in his hand a moment ; and then he laid it on the table. There was a general murmur. The picture which Mr Jildridge had drawn loomed up before him. But with a hasty hand he wrote in ‘not/ dropped in the fca lot, and going baok to bis chair by the window, sat down. There was a cold wave of silence. Then Jilt suddenly walked up to the fore man and faced him. ‘Now/ he said, ' we’ll stop, Tho very next turn breaks ground. If you, or any ether man that ycu set on, tries to talk to mo when I don’t want to hear, to worry me to dra'h —look out!’ How tho long hours wore on ! How easy, sometimes, to resist an open pressure, aud how hard, with the resistance gone, to fight, as one that beats the air ! How the prospect of a whole hostile town loomed up, in a mirage, before Eli ! And then the picture rose before him of a long, stately barque, now tuVding, whose owner had asked him yesterday to bo first mate. And if his wife were only well, and he were only free from this night’s trouble, how soon, upon the long, green he could begin to redeem his little home ! And then came Mr B'dridge, kind and friendly, to have another little chat.

Morning oamo, cold and drizzily. An officer knocked at the door, and called out, ‘ Breakfast!’ And, In a moment, unwashed, and all uncombed, except the tin-pedlar, who always carried a beard-c mb In hia pookt t, they were marched across tho street to the hotel.

There were a number of men on the piazza waiting to see them—jurymen, witnesses, and the accused himself, for he was on ball. He Fad seen the procession the night before, and, like the others, had read its meaning. ‘Eli knows I wouldn’t do i r ,‘ he had stid to himself, * and he’s going to hang out, sure.’

The jury began to turn from the Comtbouse door. Everybody looked. A fi e of two men, another file, another, another; would there come three men, and then one ? No; Ell no longer walked alone. Every* body looked at Wood } ho turned sharply

away. Bat this time the order of march In fact showed nothing, one way or the other It only meant that the Jadge, who had happened to see the jury the night before returning from their supper, had sent for the high sheriff in some temper—for Judges are human—and had rigorously intimated that if that statesman did not look after his fool of a deputy, who let a jury parade secrets to the public view, he would I The jury were in their room again, At nine o’clock came a rap, and a summons from the court. The prosecuting att.rney was speaking with the judge when they went in. In a moment he took his feat.

* John Wood,’ called out the clerk, and the defendant arose ; his attorney was not there.

* Mr Foreman I’ said the judge, rlsir.g. The jury arose. The silence of the crowded cou t-room was Intense.

* Before the clerk asks yon for a verdict, gentlemen,’ said the judge, ‘I have something of the first importar.ee to say to you, which has but this moment oome to my knowledge.' Eli changed colour, and the whole court-room looked at him, * There were some most singular rumours, after the ease was given to you, gentlemen, to the effect that there had been in this cause a criminal abuse of justice. It is painful to suspect, and shocking to know, that courts and juries are liable ever to suffer by such unprincipled practices. After ten years upon the beach I never witness a conviction of crime without pain; but that pain Is light compared with the distress of knowing of a wilful perversion of justice. It is a relief to me to be aola to say to you that such instances are, In my judgment, exceedingly rare, and — go keen is the awful searching power of trnth—are almost invartab’y disc -vered.’

The foreman touched his neighbour with his elbow. Mi folded his arms.

‘As I said,’ continued the judge, ‘there were most singular rumours. During the evening and the night, rumour, as is often the case, led to evidence, and evidence has led to confession and tc certainty. And the district-attorney now desires me to say to you that the chief officer of the Bank—who held the second key to the safe—is now nnder arrest for a heavy defalcation, which a sham robbery was to conceal, and that yon may find the prisoner at the bar—not guilty. I congratulate you, gentlemen, that yon had not rendered an adverse verdict.’ ‘ Torr honour,' said Eli; and he cleared bis throat; *1 desire it to be known that, even as the case stood last night, this jury had not agreed to convict, and never would have!’

There was a hush, while a loud soratahing pea endorsed the record of acqnittal. Then Wood walked down to the jury-box and took Eli’s band.

'Just what I told my wife all through,’he said ; I knew you’d bang out.’ Eli's jury was excused for the rest of the day, ana by noon he was in his own village, relieved, too, of his moat pressing harden; for George Cahcon had met him on the road, and told him that be was not going tc the West after all, for the present, and ahonld not need his money. Bat, as he turned the bend of the road and neared his house, be felt a lining fear that seme disturbing rumor might have reached his wife about his action on the jury. And, to his distreis and smuement, there was was, sitting in a chair at the door. ’Lizzie!’ he said, ‘what does this mean? Are yon cr*zy ?’ ‘lMtell yon what it means,’ she said, as she stood np with a little smile and clasped her hands behind her, ‘ this morning. It got aronnd and came to me that yon was standing cut all alone for John Wood, and that the talk was that they’d be down on yon, and drive yon out of town, and that everybody pitied me- pitied me ! And when I beard that, I thought I’d see! And my strength seemed to come all back, and I got right np, and drease 1 myself, And what’s more, I’m going to get well now ?’ And she did.