II
It was perhaps an hour after dawn that Stephen awoke for about the third or fourth time that night; for the conflict still surged within him and would give him no peace. And, as he lay there, awake in an instant, staring into the brightness of the morn, once more weighing the mysterious disclosures of the evening, swayed by the desire for action at one moment, overcome with sadness at the next, the thought of the impending verdict of his trial occurred at him and made him rise very hurriedly.
He was an early arrival at Headquarters. There had been several matters disposed of during the preceding day and the verdicts would be announced together. The room where the court was being held was already stirring with commotion; his judge-advocate was there, as was Colonel Forrest, Mr. Anderson, several members of the General's staff, and Mr. Allison, who had sought entry to learn the decision. Suddenly a dull solemn silence settled over all as the members of the court filed slowly into the room.
They took their places with their usual dignity, and began to dispose of the several cases in their turn. When that of Captain Meagher was reached Stephen was ordered to appear before the court to hear his sentence.
He took his place before them with perfect calmness. He observed that not one of them ventured to meet his eye as he awaited their utterance.
They found that he was not justified in making the attack upon a superior officer, notwithstanding the alleged cause for provocation, and that he was imprudent in his action, yet because of his good character, as testified to by his superior officers, because of the mitigating circumstances which had been brought to light by the testimony of the witnesses during the course of the trial and because the act had been committed without malice or criminal intent, he was found not guilty of any violation of the Articles of War, but imprudent in his action, for which cause he had been sentenced to receive a reprimand from the Military Governor.
Stephen spoke not a word to any one as he made his way back to his seat. Why could they not have given him a clear verdict? Either he was guilty or he was not guilty. He could not be misled by the sugary phrases in which the vote of censure had been couched. The court had been against him from the start.
At any rate, he thought, the reprimand would be only a matter of form. Its execution lay wholly with him who was to administer it. The court could not, by law, indicate its severity, nor its lenity, nor indeed add anything in regard to its execution, save to direct that it should be administered by the commander who convened the court. And while it was undoubtedly the general intention of the court-martial to impose a mild punishment, yet the quality of the reprimand was left entirely to the discretion of the authority commissioned to utter it.
When Stephen appeared before the Military Governor at the termination of the business of the day, he was seized with a great fury, one of those angers which, for a while, poison the air without obscuring the mind. There was an unkind look on the face of the Governor, which he did not like and which indicated to him that all would not be pleasant. He bowed his head in answer to his name.
"Captain Meagher," the Governor began. "You have been found guilty by the Regimental Court-Martial of an action which was highly imprudent. You have been led perhaps by an infatuate zeal in behalf of those, whom you term your co-religionists, to the committal of an offense upon the person of your superior officer. It is because of this fact that I find it my sad duty to reprimand you severely for your misguided ardor and to admonish you, together with the other members of your sect, of whom an unfair representation is already found in the halls of our Congress and in the ranks of our forces, lest similar outbreaks occur again. Did you but know that this eye only lately saw the members of that same Congress at Mass for the soul of a Roman Catholic in purgatory, and participating in the rites of a Church against whose anti-Christian corruptions your pious ancestors would have witnessed with their blood? The army must not witness similar outbreaks of religious zeal in the future."
He finished. Stephen left the room without a word, turned on his heel and made his way down the street.