Chapter XL: The Deserted Cabin

Three weeks after the events related in our last chapter, a horseman rode slowly through the clearing before Daniel Hart’s cabin and dismounted beneath the huge chestnut, which was yet standing with its trunk cut through to the heart, and all the foliage on the upper branches hanging withered and drooping in the morning sunshine. As the man passed from under the tree his foot struck something upon the ground. It was Daniel Hart’s axe, rusted and wet with dew, which had been lying upon the same spot till the grass and strawberry vines had crept over and tangled themselves around it so completely, that, but for his accidental stumble, it might not have been discovered. The man lifted the axe, examined it closely, and muttering—

“There is nothing here but rust—downright honest rust”—rested the implement against the tree, and moved across the clearing.

Daniel Hart’s cabin stood desolate and uninhabited, like a forsaken bird’s-nest, in the midst of its little vegetable garden—no wreath of smoke went curling up from the stick-chimney in the quiet morning air, and, though it was near the breakfast hour, no snowy napkin streaming from the window proclaimed the waiting meal. The door was unlocked, and our horseman had but to touch it with his foot to gain entrance into the dwelling.

How lonesome and neglected it was! A few ashes lay upon the hearth, caked together with the water that had rained down the open-mouthed chimney. A bed stood in one corner, made up neatly, and covered with a pretty patch-work quilt; but the pillows were spotted with mildew, and the same damp mould had eaten its way in many a broad patch over the glowing colors of the quilt. The back window, close by, was open, and a mass of morning-glory vines, entangled with scarlet runners in full flower, had forced their way through and crept along the wall. They had twisted themselves around one of the bed-posts, and were creeping over the head-board, where they hung in a light and graceful wreath, rendering the decay and stillness around yet more melancholy by contrast.

The man who gazed upon this scene was a backwoods constable, rough and uncultivated; but even he was affected by this picture of home-comforts so completely abandoned. He had come to search the house, but moved about with a soft tread, and unlocked the cupboards and that large chest with a bunch of keys which he took from his pocket stealthily, as if his heart would not permit him to handle with a rude hand the household gods of another man. He started up from his knees by the chest, and dropped the garment he was examining, like a guilty one, when a noise at the window disturbed him. It was only the house cat, gaunt and thin with hunger, which had just come in from the woods, and stood staring at him from the window-sill, with a flying-squirrel in her jaws. The poor animal had attained a fierce and savage look, from solitude and the wild raids she had been compelled to make for food; but she dropped her prey and crept toward the man, purring mournfully, and rubbing herself against his thick boots.

“Poor puss, poor puss,” murmured the man, stooping down to smooth her rough coat with his hand.

But, as if she had not seen that he was a stranger before, the cat snapped angrily at his hand, and darted away to the squirrel, which she seized in her mouth and carried under the bed, where she remained, growling fiercely, and peering at the stranger, from under the valance, with her round, savage eyes, as she devoured her victim.

After he had examined every thing in the rooms below, the man went up a ladder which led to the garret, where he continued his search among the barrels and bunches of dried herbs which it contained, but evidently to no effect, for he came down the ladder, muttering,

“There’s nothing here—nothing on ’arth that can tell ag’in him, and I’m as glad of it as if I’d caught a bear in a coon-trap. Consarn me if can believe the old chap’s guilty arter all.”

With these words the constable went out, closing the door carefully after him, and mounting his horse, made the best of his way to The Bend.

Judge Church was walking up and down the veranda, in front of his tavern, when the constable rode up.

“Well, neighbor, well!” exclaimed the kind-hearted man, “what news?—how have you made out?”

“Just as I expected. There’s nothing in the cabin but the fixin’s that belong there, and they’re nigh upon sp’iled; for my part, I never could see the use of going out there ag’in.”

“Never mind, Johnson, never mind; that flinty lawyer would insist on it, and you know it won’t do for me to interfere. They mistrust me, I can see that; but they needn’t—they needn’t! I always liked Hart. It goes ag’in my feelings to believe him guilty; but if they prove it—if he has killed that noble fellow and then robbed him, I shall do my duty, Johnson. I must do my duty!”

“And I must do mine, too,” replied the constable; and he added, bending down nearer to the Judge: “but it will be a tough job to tie the halter round that old man’s neck; between you and I, Judge, when you have done your part of the business, and my turn comes, there may be a log missing from the old jail there!”

A bright gleam shot to the Judge’s eye, but he shook his head reprovingly.

“No, no Johnson that will never do; law is law; but hush, hush—don’t think of any thing of the kind yet. We must do our duty—the laws must be maintained, Mr. Johnson!”

The Judge spoke these last words in a raised voice, and accompanied with a warning look, which the constable understood; for just then Michael Hurst came sauntering round a corner of the house, and slowly approached them. The appearance of this man had been much changed since the night of the storm; his features had become sharp and thin; a restless, anxious expression would constantly break over them, notwithstanding the listless air which he always assumed. His figure had shrunk away till the hunting-frock, which he always wore, hung loosely over it. All this gave a neglected look to his whole person, combined, as it was, with unusual disorder in the remainder of his dress.

“Halloa, Hurst!” said the constable, glancing at the young man’s dress, which was even more roughly put on than it had been the day before, and resting his eyes at last on the clumsy boots, which gave a still more slovenly air to his person, “you are so much like one of us that I did not know you at first. Glad to see you taking to the brush like a man, at last. There was no living sociable with a chap who carried a white handkerchief week-days, and had his calf-skin boots blacked every morning. I tell you what, it makes us plain homespun fellows mistrustful.”

Hurst approached them with the heavy, restless air of a man who had known but little sleep for many nights; but when Johnson uttered the last word he lifted his eyes, which seemed almost black from the dark shadows around them, and cast a keen glance from the constable to the Judge.

“Mistrustful,” he said, with a forced smile, “mistrustful of me?”

“Not now, that you dress like a man, and have given up pinching your feet out of all shape,” replied the constable. “But what have you done with the rights-and-lefts? Give them to old Brown; let him hang them up at his door for a sign. Come, bring the things out, and I’ll leave them as I go along!”

“You would only get one of them, at best,” said Hurst, with an unnatural laugh. “The hostler got tired of blacking them, I suppose, though I paid him well enough for the trouble.”

“So he rubbed them with tallow, and spoiled the polish,” cried the constable, laughing.

“No; worse than that. He lost one boot altogether. So I was obliged to patronize old Brown,” replied Hurst, with affected carelessness.

“A cunning fellow, that hostler of yours,” said Johnson, nodding to the Judge, and taking up his bridle.

“I say, Hurst,” he added, turning again to the young man, “you wanted an order to see Daniel Hart, one day last week; I am going down to the jail now, you can walk along, and I will let you in.”

Hurst hesitated a moment. “Are his daughter and niece there now?” he inquired.

“Oh yes, poor gals, they never leave the old man.”

“Well, wait a moment, and I will go with you,” replied Hurst, turning to mount the tavern steps.

“Is he acquainted with Hart?” inquired the Judge, addressing Johnson the moment Hurst was out of hearing.

“Not that I know of,” was the reply, “but he is hand-and-glove with the prosecuting attorney, and it would not answer to refuse him.”

“Just so,” said the Judge, rather anxiously, “but give the prisoner a hint before he goes in; the fellow is silky as an ear of green corn, but I don’t like him. He may be put up to this by the attorney, and so take advantage of any thing he can get out of poor Hart. Put the old man on his guard—you understand!”

“Yes, yes; I will see to it,” replied Johnson hastily. “Come to think now, I may as well ride on and leave orders for the jailer to let him in. If we go together there will be no chance to caution the old man.”

“Ride on, then,” replied the Judge, “I will tell him how it is!” and, with a friendly shake of the hand, the Judge and the constable separated.

After a little time Hurst descended from the room, where he had been arranging his dress, and walked hurriedly down the road toward the county jail, which stood on the outskirts of the town.

The county jail was built of logs, and erected after the usual fashion of such buildings, but the windows were heavily grated, and the huge logs were bolted together with iron bars, which formed a massive wall scarcely less vulnerable than granite itself. The doors, too, were knobbed with great spike nails, and bolted with massive bars, just as they came from the forge. Altogether, though rudely built, the jail was not only strong but well guarded, and it must have been a desperate man indeed who could hope for escape when once immured within its rugged walls.

But the stout farmer, who was the only important prisoner in the building, had little thought of escape. If the massive logs could have crumbled to dust at his feet, Daniel Hart would not have fled one step from the captivity in which his friends and neighbors had placed him. Still imprisonment was a weary trial to an old man who had been all his life an active tiller of the soil—a healthy, enterprising, cheerful farmer. He felt restive, and sometimes almost sullen, cooped up—as he expressed it—like a barn-door fowl, with its wings clipped; sometimes he gave way to fits of childlike melancholy, for—innocent or guilty of his brother-in-law’s death—the old man could not but feel the event deeply; the more so as Bentley’s noble and suffering daughter was always near, to remind him, by her sad and mournful attempts at cheerfulness, how terribly she felt the event which had rendered her young heart desolate.

Sometimes Daniel Hart would give way to fits of sturdy indignation against those who had placed him in confinement. Again he would admit, with simple-hearted candor, that appearances were strong against him, and he could not blame those who, on evidence so conclusive, had dragged him from his quiet home, and shut him up, to undergo a disgraceful trial for the murder of a man whom he had loved as a brother.

“I would not have cared,” said Daniel to his daughter, on the morning after Constable Johnson had been at the jail to warn him of Hurst’s visit, “I would not have cared a bean-stalk about being shut up here, if I didn’t have to see every scoundrel that chooses to come in and ask me impudent questions. It’s bad enough to know that your poor uncle is gone—don’t turn pale, don’t cry so, Gillian—you did not think it was me, if I did bring home the money with red hands! I know my own daughter will never believe it!”

“No, no, my father! my dear, good father! never think it again,” exclaimed Martha, winding her arms around the stout old man and kissing his brown cheek, while she trembled and wept with agitation. “But he is dead—dead and gone—and, oh father, how she did love him!”

“I know it, gal, I know it well enough,” said the prisoner, taking the pale head of his niece between both his great hands and kissing her forehead, while his stout form trembled, and tears ran down his cheeks. “I know you loved him; he was as good a father as ever lived; but if he is in heaven, Gillian—and why not? he was good enough to go there, though he wasn’t a member in any church—if he can only look down from heaven now, he knows that I didn’t do it. I! Gillian, I loved him a’most as well as you did!”

Daniel Hart sunk down on a bench, that ran across his prison-room, and covering his face with both hands, sobbed aloud, though he was ashamed of his tears, and struggled hard against them. Gillian crept to his side, and bending her fair head upon his breast, tried to comfort him.

“I didn’t do it, Gillian—the God of heaven knows I didn’t. I’m growing thin. I look down-hearted sometimes, I know that; but it isn’t a guilty conscience. They may hang me to-morrow, if they like, but I’ll cry out ‘not guilty’ with my last breath. They shan’t point you out, Martha, arter I’m gone, and say, ‘There goes the gal whose father owned that he had killed his own brother, just as they swung him off.’ They shan’t, I say—they never shall do that, Martha!”

And pressing the poor weeping girls to his broad bosom with both his arms, Daniel Hart swayed to and fro on his seat, protesting that he was innocent, and striving to soothe their grief. But when Martha, who lingered there last, moved on his bosom, and tried to murmur words of confidence and hope through her tears, he burst forth again.

“Never mind, gal, never mind. They may do it if they like—my own neighbors, too—let them hang me, let them! I will take you with me. We will go together; for it would kill you to see them strangling your father like a dog—wouldn’t it, child? That will be best; and we can be buried all in one spot, down in the woods. Don’t take on so—don’t take on, Martha—we shall find them in another world! Poor Bentley, Sarah and your mother too. But you must go with me, Martha, for the first thing that she will ask for will be the little gal she left behind for me to take care of, and I shan’t dare to tell her that I’ve left you all alone in a world where an honest fellow can be hung for nothing, by his own neighbors!”

“Yes, father, we will go together. Neither of us have any thing to live for, now,” said Martha Hart, rising from her father’s arms far enough to wind her own around his neck, and laying her pale, wet cheek feebly down on his shoulder. “I am glad, father, that you want me to go with you. The world would be so lonesome—after that.”

Daniel Hart laid his cheek down to the pale face upon his shoulder, and began rocking her in his arms again, without any other reply; for this rush of passionate feeling had exhausted even his great strength. By degrees they all became more calm, but Daniel was still holding the strengthless girl in his arms, and Gillian sat with dreary face in a corner of the room, when the prison-door opened, and Michael Hurst entered.

Daniel Hart sprung to his feet, set Martha down, and dashing the tears from his face with an impetuous motion of the hand, walked quickly to the further end of his dungeon, where he turned, like a stag at bay, and waited in stern silence for his visitor to speak.

Almost for the first time in his life Hurst was at a loss for words; he turned pale, and then the color burned hotly up to his forehead, but shaking off the fascination which the prisoner’s eye seemed to fix upon him, he moved gently to the bench where Gillian was sitting, and placed himself near her. Hart took a step forward, but before he could do more, his niece had left her seat and stood by his side, pale and still trembling, but with the tears quenched in her eyes.

“Well, sir, what do you want here? This roof belongs to the State. If I were a free man, it could not cover us both half a minute longer.”

“I have come as a friend; pray hear me with patience,” said Hurst, rising and moving toward the prisoner.

Hart flung one powerful arm around his niece, and motioned Hurst back with the other.

“Stay where you are, Mike Hurst; I care nothing about what place you stand in, but my niece, here, trembles as if a rattlesnake were crawling this way; keep where you stand, I can hear you well enough.”

“Why do you treat me in this way?” said Hurst, soothingly. “You may believe it or not, but I only came to see if I could help you. The trial comes on to-morrow.”

“To-morrow!” exclaimed Martha, faintly, and drawing closer to the old man.

“The evidence against you is enough to convict any man,” continued Hurst, still drawing toward the unfortunate prisoner. “The people are excited against you! There is but one way to save your life—for the trial once over, they will hang you at once!”

“But how—how can he be saved?” cried Martha, in a voice of eager hope, which overwhelmed ever other sound.

“By escape, Martha, by escape,” replied Hurst, drawing close to the excited girl. “It will be easy to break jail if he has a friend on the outside. I will be that friend—by to-morrow morning we can be safe in spite of all the constables in the country. I have money enough for us all—trust every thing to me!”

A flash of joy shot over the broad face of Daniel Hart as this prospect of liberty was presented to him, but it passed away, and grasping his niece’s hand very hard, as if to prevent her speaking, he gazed on Hurst’s face earnestly a moment, then said, with cool composure,

“And what do you expect to gain by it, if I should break jail?”

“Nothing, nothing, but your own good will, the kind feelings of your daughter, and some favor with this proud lady here,” replied Hurst, stammering with embarrassment.

“And this is all you would be at?” continued Hart, still with great coolness.

“Why, Gillian knows how well I love her. I will marry her the minute we get to one of the river towns, in spite of all this odium.”

“Just so,” muttered Hart, grasping Gillian’s hand still more firmly, as he felt her start and tremble. “But would you be kind to her?”

“She shall sleep on gold, if she wishes it,” replied the young man, with flashing eyes, and, emboldened by the quiet way in which Hart seemed to be dropping into his plans, he attempted to withdraw her from the protecting arm of her uncle, but Hart put a hand against his breast and pushed him back.

“Not yet—she is not yours just yet. Look here, do you think that I murdered her father in cold blood?”

“What else can any one think? He has disappeared. His money was found in your chest. What else can be thought?”

“You believe this, and yet will help the old murderer to break jail!”

“I would do a great deal more than that for her sake,” replied Hurst, casting a look of revolting tenderness on the helpless girl.

“Well, then, let me tell you, Michael Hurst, if I were the cold-blooded murderer that you think I am, I should consider my niece here disgraced by marrying a man who would help me to escape; but I am no murderer nor robber, either. I wouldn’t run away if these jail-doors were flung wide open, and a troop of horses on the outside! If they want to try me for my life, let the neighbors do it. If they want to hang me, let them do that too. We are ready, Martha, we are ready,” and, wringing his daughter’s hand with a sort of mournful exultation, the old man looked firmly in the face of his anxious visitor. “My niece would sooner be with her old uncle on the gallows than your wife. Wouldn’t you, Gillian?” continued the firm old man, folding the poor girl to his side with his disengaged arm.

Hurst began to expostulate again, but the prisoner cut him short.

“It’s of no use, I tell you, I am determined to stand trial. I’m not guilty, and I won’t sneak away as if I was.”

“But they will hang you. Even Judge Church is turning against you now,” persisted the young man, becoming more and more anxious.

“Well, let him,” cried Hart, in a broken voice and dashing a tear from his rough cheek; “I shouldn’t have believed it of him, though!”

Hurst was about to urge his purpose still further, but that moment the jail-door was swung open, and our old friend, the blacksmith, came in. He cast a sharp glance at Hurst as he entered, and shook Hart warmly by the hand.

“Well, I have just seen the Judge, and he says your trial will sartinly come on to-morrow!” exclaimed the good man, with a degree of cheerfulness which seemed remarkable under the circumstances. “They are all ready. The attorney has got evidence enough to hang fifty men; the whole would be complete as a nailed horse-shoe if they could only find the body. It’s a pity they can’t find the body, though, isn’t it?”

Hart shook his head and muttered, “It is strange.”

“Got any lawyer feed yet?” inquired the smith.

“No,” replied Hart. “What could a lawyer do for me?”

“True enough, true enough,” rejoined the smith, folding his dusty arms and laughing. “I will be your lawyer. What do you say, gals, shall I be his lawyer?”

“You have always been a good friend,” said Martha, smiling faintly through her tears; “you have brought us our meals, and tried to cheer him up every day. No one has ever given us any hope but you.”

“Yes, yes, depend on it, the truth will come out at last—such things always do one time or another.”

The blacksmith turned half-round as he uttered these words, and cast a keen glance from under his heavy eyebrows at Hurst, who still lingered in the room.

The young man turned a little pale, but he tried to smile, and muttered, in the low, silky voice which he could so well assume,

“Certainly, the truth always makes itself known at last.”

“Well,” continued the smith, wiping his hand on the leather apron which he always wore, and patting Gillian kindly on the head before he took leave of Hart, “keep up your spirits, all of you: that is half the battle. I have left some provisions with the jailer; don’t let the thoughts of to-morrow spoil your appetite. Come, Mr. Hurst, are you going my way?”

Hurst hesitated and looked anxiously from the prisoner to Gillian, but meeting no encouragement to remain, he followed the smith out with evident reluctance.