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THE WAYS OF THE HOUR
“Sartain, she does. I know, too, but I won’t tell. They might
want to hang me, as well as Mary Monson, if I told. I know
too much to do anything so foolish. Mary has said they would
hang me, if I tell. I don’t want to be hanged, a bit.”
A shudder from Sarah betrayed the effect of these words on
the listeners; and Mrs. McBrain actually rose with the intention of sending for her daughter, who was then in the gaol,
consoling the much – injured prisoner, as Anna Updyke firmly believed her to be, by her gentle but firm friendship. A word
from the doctor, however, induced her to resume her seat, and
to await the result with a greater degree of patience.
“Mary Monson would seem to be a very prudent counsellor,” rejoined Dunscomb. “Yes; but she isn’t the great counsellor from York you be that gentleman, they tell me.” “May I ask
who told you anything about me?”
“Nancy Horton and so did Mary Monson. Nancy said if
I made so much noise, I should disturb the great counsellor
from York, and he might get me hanged for it. I was only singing hymns, and they say it is good for folks in trouble to sing
hymns. If you be the great counsellor from York, I wish you
would tell me one thing. Who got the gold that was in the
stocking?”
“Do you happen to know anything of that stocking, or of
the gold?”
“Do I “ looking first over one shoulder, then over the other,
but hesitating to proceed. “Will they hang me, if I tell?”
“I should think not; though I can only give you an opinion.
Do not answer, unless it be agreeable to you.” “I want to tell I
want to tell all, but I’m afeard. I don’t want to be hanged.”
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JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
“Well, then, speak out boldly, and I will promise that you
shall not be hanged. Who got the gold that was in the stocking?”
“Mary Monson. That’s the way she has got so much money.”
“I cannot consent to leave Anna another instant in such
company!” exclaimed the anxious mother. “Go, McBrain, and
bring her hither at once.”
“You are a little premature,” coolly remarked Dunscomb.
“This is but a person of weak mind; and too much importance
should not be attached to his words. Let us hear what further
he may have to say.”
It was too late. The footstep of Mrs. Horton was heard in
the passage; and the extraordinary being vanished as suddenly
and as stealthily as he had entered.
“What can be made of this?” McBrain demanded, when a
moment had been taken to reflect.
“Nothing, Ned; I care not if Williams knew it all. The testimony of such a man cannot be listened to for an instant. It is
wrong in us to give it a second thought; though I perceive that
you do. Half the mischief in the world is caused by misconceptions, arising from a very numerous family of causes; one of
which is a disposition to fancy a great deal from a little. Do you
pronounce the man an idiot or is he a madman?”
“He does not strike me as absolutely either. There is something peculiar in his case; and I shall ask permission to look
into it. I suppose we are done with the cards shall I go for
Anna?”
The anxious mother gave a ready assent; and McBrain
went one way, while Dunscomb retired to his own room, not
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THE WAYS OF THE HOUR
without stopping before his neighbour’s door, whom he heard
muttering and menacing within.
All this time the two little parlours mentioned were receiving their company. The law is doubtless a very elevated profession, when its practice is on a scale commensurate with its true
objects. It becomes a very different pursuit, however, when its
higher walks are abandoned, to choose a path amid its thickets and quagmires. Perhaps no human pursuit causes a wider
range of character among its votaries, than the practice of this
profession. In the first place, the difference, in an intellectual
point of view, between the man who sees only precedents, and
the man who sees the principles on which they are founded, is
as marked as the difference between black and white. To this
great distinction in mind, is to be added another that opens a
still wider chasm, the results of practice, and which depends
on morals. While one set of lawyers turn to the higher objects
of their calling, declining fees in cases of obviously questionable right, and struggle to maintain their honesty in direct
collision with the world and its temptations, another, and
much the largest, falls readily into the practices of their craft
the word seems admirably suited to the subjectand live on, encumbered and endangered not only by their own natural vices, but greatly damaged by those that in a manner they adopt,
as it might be ex officio. This latter course is unfortunately that
taken by a vast number of the members of the bar all over the
world, rendering them loose in their social morality, ready to
lend themselves and their talents to the highest bidder, and
causing them to be at first indifferent, and in the end blind, to
the great features of right and wrong. These are the moralists
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JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
who advance the doctrine that “the advocate has a right to act
as his client would act;” while the class first named allow that
“the advocate has a right to do what his client has a right to
do,” and no more.
Perhaps there was not a single member of the profession
present that night in the two little parlours of Mrs. Horton,
who recognized the latter of these rules; or who did not, at
need, practise on the former. As has been already said, these
were the rowdies of the Duke’s county bar. They chewed,
smoked, drank, and played, each and all coarsely. To things
that were innocent in themselves they gave the aspect of guilt
by their own manners. The doors were kept locked; even amid
their coarsest jokes, their ribaldry, their oaths that were often
revolting and painfully frequent, there was an uneasy watchfulness, as if they feared detection. There was nothing frank
and manly in the deportment of these men. Chicanery, management, doubledealing, mixed up with the outbreakings of a
coarse standard of manners, were visible in all they said or did,
except, perhaps, at those moments when hypocrisy was paying
its homage to virtue. This hypocrisy, however, had little, or at
most a very indirect connection with anything religious. The
offensive offshoots of the exaggerations that were so abounding among us half a century since, are giving place to hypocrisy of another school. The homage that was then paid to principles, however erroneous and forbidding, is now paid to the
ballot – boxes. There was scarcely an individual around those
card – tables, at which the play was so obviously for the stakes
as to render the whole seene revolting, who would not have
shrunk from having his amusements known. It would seem as
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THE WAYS OF THE HOUR
if conscience consulted taste. Everything was coarse and offensive; the attitudes, oaths, conversation, liquors, and even the
manner of drinking them. Apart from the dialogue, little was
absolutely done that might not have been made to lose most of
its repulsiveness, by adopting a higher school of manners; but
of this these scions of a noble stock knew no more than they
did of the parent stem.
It is scarcely necessary to say that both Williams and Timms
were of this party. The relaxation was, in fact, in conformity
with their tastes and practices; and each of these excrescences
of a rich and beneficent soil counted on the meetings in Mrs.
Horton’s private rooms, as the more refined seek pleasure in
the exercise of their tastes and habits.
“I say, Timms,” bawled out an attorney of the name of
Crooks “You play’d a trump, sir all right go ahead first rate
good play, that ours dead. I say, Timms, you’re going to save
Mary Monson’s neck. When I came here, I thought she was a
case; but the prosecution is making out miserably.”
“What do you say to that, Williams?” put in Crooks’s partner, who was smoking, playing, and drinking, with occasional
`asides’ of swearing, all, as might be, at the same time. “I trump
that, sir, by your leave what do you say to that, Williams?”
“I say that this is not the court; and trying such a cause
once ought to satisfy a reasonable man.”
“He’s afraid of showing his hand, which I am not,” put in
another, exposing his cards as he spoke. “Williams always has
some spare trumps, however, to get him out of all his difficulties.”
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JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
“Yes, Williams has a spare trump, and there it is, giving
me the trick,” answered the saucy lawyer, as coolly as if he had
been engaged in an inferior slander – suit. “I shall be at Timms
pretty much by the same process to – morrow.”
“Then you will do more than you have done to – day, Master Williams. This Mrs. Jane Pope may be a trump, but she is
not the ace. I never knew a witness break down more completely.”
“We’ll find the means to set her up again I think that knave
is yours, Green yes, I now see my game, which is to take it with
the queen very much, Timms, as we shall beat you to – morrow. I keep my trump card always for the last play, you know.”
“Come, come, Williams,” put in the oldest member of
the bar, a man whose passions were cooled by time, and who
had more gravity than most of his companions “Come, come,
Williams, this is a trial for a life, and joking is a little out of
place.”
“I believe there is no juror present, Mr. Marvin, which is all
the reserve the law exacts.”
“Although the law may tolerate this levity, feeling will not.
The prisoner is a fine young woman; and for my part, though
I wish to say nothing that may influence any one’s opinion, I
have heard nothing yet to justify an indictment, much less a
conviction.”
Williams laid down his cards, rose, stretched his arms,
gaped, and taking Timms by the arm, he led the latter from
the room. Not content with this, the wary limb of the law continued to move forward, until he and his companion were in
the open air.
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THE WAYS OF THE HOUR
“It is always better to talk secrets outside than inside of a
house,” observed Williams, as soon as they were at a safe distance from the inn – door. “It is not too late yet, Timms you
must see how weak we are, and how bunglingly the District
Attorney has led off. Half those jurors will sleep to – night
with a feeling that Mary Monson has been hardly dealt by.”
“They may do the same to – morrow night, and every night
in the month,” answered Timms. “Not unless the arrangement
is made. We have testimony enough to hang the governor.”
“Show us your list of witnesses, then, that we may judge of this
for ourselves.”
“That would never do. They might be bought off for half
the money that is necessary to take us out of the field. Five
thousand dollars can be no great matter for such a woman and
her friends.”
“Whom do you suppose to be her friends, Williams? If you
know them, you are better informed than her own counsel.”
“Yes, and a pretty point that will make, when pressed
against you. No, no, Timms; your client has been ill – advised,
or she is unaccountably obstinate. She has friends, although
you may not know who they are; and friends who can, and
who would very promptly help her, if she would consent to
ask their assistance. Indeed, I suspect she has cash enough on
hand to buy us off.”
“Five thousand dollars is a large sum, Williams, and is not
often to be found in Biberry gaol. But, if Mary Monson has these
friends, name them, that we may apply for their assistance.”
“Harkee, Timms; you are not a man so ignorant of what
is going on in the world, as to require to be told the letters of
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JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
the alphabet. You know that there are extensive associations
of rogues in this young country, as well as in most that are
older.”
“What has that to do with Mary Monson and our case?”
“Everything. This Mary Monson has been sent here to get at
the gold of the poor old dolt, who has not been able to conceal
her treasure after it was hoarded. She made a sub – treasury of
her stocking, and exhibited the coin, like any other sub – treasurer. Many persons like to look at it, just to feast their eyes.”
“More to finger it; and you are of the number, Williams!”
“I admit it. The weakness is general in the profession, I believe. But this is idle talk, and we are losing very precious time.
Will you, or will you not, apply again to your client for the
money?”
“Answer me candidly, a question or two, and I will do as
you desire. You know, Williams, that we are old friends, and
never had any serious difficulty since we have been called to
the bar.”
“Oh, assuredly,” answered Williams, with an ironical smile
that it might have been fortunate for the negotiation the obscurity concealed from his companion; “excellent friends from
the beginning, Timms, and likely to continue so, I trust, to the
last. Men who know each other as well as you and I, ought to be
on the best of terms. For my part, I never harboured a wrangle
at the bar in my mind five minutes after I left the court. Now
for your question.”
“You surely do not set down Mary Monson as the stool –
pigeon of a set of York thieves!”
“Who, or what else can she be, Mr. Timms? Better educated,
and belonging to an `upper ten’ in villany, but of a company
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THE WAYS OF THE HOUR
of rogues. Now, these knaves stand by each other much more
faithfully than the body of the citizens stand by the law; and
the five thousand will be forthcoming for the asking.”
“Are you serious in wishing me to believe you think my
client guilty!”
Here Williams made no bones of laughing outright. It is
true that he suppressed the noise immediately, lest it should
attract attention; but laugh he did, and with right good will.
“Come, Timms, you have asked your question, and I leave
you to answer it yourself. One thing I will say, however, in the
way of admonition, which is thiswe shall make out such a case
against her to – morrow as would hang a governor, as I have
already told you.”
“I believe you’ve done your worst already why not let me
know the names of your witnesses?”
“You know the reason. We wish the whole sum ourselves,
and have no fancy to its being scattered all over Duke’s. I give
you my honour, Timms and you know what that is I give you
my honour that we hold this testimony in reserve.”
“In which case the District Attorney will bring the witnesses on the stand; and we shall gain nothing, after all, by
your withdrawal.”
“The District Attorney has left the case very much to me. I
have prepared his brief, and have taken care to keep to myself
enough to turn the scales. If I quit, Mary Monson will be acquitted if I stay, she will be hanged. A pardon for her will be
out of the question she is too high among the `upper ten’ to
expect that besides, she is not an anti – renter.”
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JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
“I wonder the thieves do not combine, as well as other
folks, and control votes!”
“They do these anti – renters belong to the gangs, and
have already got their representatives in high places. They
are `landpirates, ‘ while your client goes for the old stockings.
The difference in principle is by no means important, as any
clear – headed man may see. It is getting late, Timms.”
“I cannot believe that Mary Monson is the sort of person
you take her for! Williams, I’ve always looked upon you, and
treated you, as a friend. You may remember how I stood by you
in the Middlebury case?”
“Certainly you did your duty by me in that matter, and I
have not forgot it.”
The cause alluded to was an action for a “breach of promise,” which, at one time, threatened all of Williams’s “future
usefulness,” as it is termed; but which was put to sleep in the
end by means of Timms’s dexterity in managing the “out –
door” points of a difficult case.
“Well, then, be my friend in this matter. I will be honest
with you, and acknowledge that, as regards my client, I have
had that is provided she is acquitted, and her character comes
out fair that I have had and still have, for that matter what”
“Are called `ulterior views.’ I understand you, Timms, and
have suspected as much these ten days. A great deal depends
on what you consider a fair character. Taking the best view of
her situation, Mary Monson will have been tried for murder
and arson.” “Not if acquitted of the first. I have the District
Attorney’s promise to consent to a nolle prosequi on the last
indictment, if we traverse the first successfully.”
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