Heimweh; The siren; The loaded gun; Liebereich; "Iupiter Tonans;" "Sis;" Thor's emerald; Guile

by John Luther Long

THOR’S EMERALD

I  THE SHIBBOLETH OF LIBERTY

Far out, toward the eternal ice cap, there was once a spot of earth so glowing with delicate verdure that it was called Thor’s Emerald. One can scarce imagine how it came there, unless, indeed, it dropped, by some celestial mischance, from a Titanic diadem. It lay bedded between the sea and mountain, and overlooked by the glacier. Yet, these enemies were kept at bay by a south wind rifled from an inconstant current which visited the fjord. Fair to the eye, it was a Dead Sea apple. One might grind one’s heel into the soil and find the primeval shingle left by the receding waters. And, always, there had been the threat of the glacier. For, when the inconstant current should cease, at the bar itself was making before the mouth of the fjord, the glacier would come down.

It was scarce fivescore acres. Yet it has its little history, whose beginning no man knows, whose end it is mine to relate.

In the dim past some castaways had here found a good refuge from the icy waters, and, having no hope of another country, had here set up their households. Their names perished. But their descendants, bound to the soil by an heredity stronger than either will or circumstance, kept their graves on the mountain side, which outnumbered many times the living.

For, each year, the sea and the glacier claimed their several victims.

The narrow strip of beach which led out to the south had been wider in the time of the castaways. Yet none had cared to pass by it into the better world that lay beyond—nor did they sail to it across the sea which had been so deadly to them all.

Thus the sum of their lives had been compassed in the Emerald of Thor. The sum of their necessities had ever been to keep life within and covering without their bodies. And these simple things had been hard to accomplish always. For the glacier encroached when the bar and the ice kept the warm current away, and the fish went with the current.

That duress of fear, which held the castaways, had passed upon their children. They coveted no more of the world than they saw about them. I think they scarce knew, in the passage of time, that there was else to the world than what they had.

In time this became patriotism. It was their unwritten treason to wish for another country.

This life, too, isolated in the deep heart of nature, had bred a habitude as simple as nature itself. They were true because they knew no falsehood. They were good because for them there was no evil. Wrong was the simple negation of right and needed no defining for the simple. Each had the obsession of it.

More and more precarious had their life become. In the last winter the ice had hung over them with an ominous menace. The current which was to bring their little summer was delayed very long, the fish were gone, and hunger come, so that they had begun to look each other in the eyes and ask:

“Brother in the Lord, is it now?”

For this was with them always—this certainty of their blotting out.

But suddenly, almost in an hour, the summer came. The fish returned with opulence. The ice receded with muttered curses. The streams fell down from it, the harvest grew, and there was a song on every happy lip.

It was their last harvest. For, when it was gathered, and the winds were become chill, they hastened into the boats and out to sea, that they might have their winter’s fish before the glacier came back.

All went who could, but Christof and Christine, who, though yearning to go, were commanded to remain and care for blind Agra and simple Lars, the old and the maimed and the little children.

“For, Brother in the Lord,” said the priest, when he had doffed his vestments and put on his smock, “we may not return, and thy charge is, therefore, greater than ours. Behold, I adjure thee, that thou care for them well.”

And Christof answered that he would. Whereupon the priest put his arms about his shoulders and kissed his forehead, in their simple way, and said:

“As thou doest unto them, so will the Lord to thee. We trust in thee.”

Christof again answered with assent. For always on their going forth was this charge committed to some one.

But there was something greater yet.

“And, more than all,” charged the priest, with solemn affection, “we leave thee and Christine, that there may be successors in our land; that the graves may be kept; that until, in the time of God, this land shall be blotted from the earth by the ice, there shall be lips to praise Him, and souls to pray to Him. Life is a hard thing here, yea! But it would not be so if God had not so ordained it. Therefore are we God’s children, therefore do we obey him. For had He no purpose in keeping us here, He would have found for us another land. Dost thou believe this?”

“All this I believe,” said Christof.

“Thou art the bravest, and Christine the most splendid, our little race has yet produced. We see in thee, again, all that our fathers were who lived amidst the ice, when the world was new. For that we save and keep thee, that the issue of your loins may be the noblest in our little world. But in thee we see ofttimes, with sorrow, the spirit of unrest. Thou hast said that thou wouldst wish to try thy brawn out in that world we know lies yonder. Thou hast said that thou art great as any there. That much is true. Yet be not deceived. There is no world for thee but this. There never can be. God in His thought designed it so. Thou canst not escape God’s purposes. Dost thou believe this, too?”

And Christof bowed his head.

“Wilt thou, then, obey the law, and keep and do all this which I have charged?”

And Christof answered:

“Yea.”

“If thou dost not,” the priest said, “I do fear the things that will come upon thee and our land. Yet I am sure thou wilt. I go forth with an even heart. And all—all of thy brethren—go forth with peace in their hearts because of thee. And, now, farewell, and all the grace of God Almighty stay with thee,—so, farewell.”

He kissed the head of Christof.

And Christof answered, as the custom was:

“Fare thee all well, my Brother in the Lord,” and kissed his head.

“Fare thee all well,” the priest said again. “If we return no more, thou wilt be governor and priest, and father and mother to thy country—to the old and young, the simple and the maimed. And so, again, beloved Brother in the Lord, be faithful—and fare thee all well.”

So they went forth to fish, and the sea rose mightily between them and the land, so that they came not back for many days. And, even then, their wrecked boats came in before them, wherefore, like a tender message in advance of death, Christof and Christine knew.

Yet, all came back, each one, as if at the end they would not be denied their land.

But on each face the purple hue of death had long since passed. And Christof and Christine, and Simple Olaf and blind Agra, and the little children, dug their graves on the mountain side.

II
WHEN THE SUMMER CAME AGAIN

Now, when the little fickle summer came again,—and the next year it was splendid,—two young gentlemen sauntered up the sea road to Thor’s Emerald and inquired, in something very like their language, for food and a guide into the mountain and the glacier.

They got food, such as it was,—goat’s milk and flad bröd,—from Christine’s hands, and Christof was their guide—there was none else. And there could be none better. For his childhood had been spent on the glacier and the mountain. He had begot a legend for each crag his fathers had neglected to provide with one.

So he led the daring young gentlemen from the south up into the most sacred of his caves and eyries, and, in the doing, found a wondrous pleasure. They were his age and he loved them; they loved him.

He was the Viking to them—archaic as if born a thousand years before. Upon the mountain he was the animal snuffing rare air. Upon the glacier he was untamed liberty—unassailable as the nature in which it grew. Precisely these were the young travellers to him. For they filled the camp at twilight, and, long after it, the fantastic embers, with the magnificent ghosts of the world from which they came—of which Christof heard now first—treasuring every word.

One evening as he came into camp with the wood he had hardly gathered for their evening fire, the rocks were echoing for the first time in their hoary existence “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The Norseman did not understand the song, but he caught the spirit of the singers. The fire was not made. He leaned, rapt, against a crag, with bared head, while they sang it for him in his own language. After that they sang it often together so that he learned it. And, now and then, it came back to them in his almost terrible Norsk words, where he shouted it to the listening mountains. It had taken an almost religious hold upon the guide’s fancy.

It was exactly a week when they returned. They ate once more of the little store of flad bröd, were blessed by the blind Agra, and went, singing “The Star-Spangled Banner,” back along the sea road, as they had come, loath to leave the young Viking who had stepped out of the tenth century for them.

He watched them out of sight and then choked in his throat. For, at the waving of their hands, where the road was lost to view, all that largess of which they had communed was gone. He thought to run and follow them, but he heard a song—yet turned and strode the beach with a great exultation. The song came nearer, but not more rapidly than his resolution crystallized. And when she who sang came in sight of him, he was looking obliviously out upon the booming ocean, his hand above his eyes, as if trying to pierce the misty horizon which baffled his vision, and where lay that exulting world of liberty.

And she who sung was glad to see him thus. For he was the goodliest being she had ever had in her heart. His tunic was a black wolf’s skin—his legs were swathed in other skins—the fur turned in—and gartered with strips of furred hide—about his neck was a string of wolf’s teeth—on his feet were huge shoes of skin such as his robe—his hair was fair and long—his head was never covered.

She ceased her song and came before him. Yet he gazed.

“Soul of my soul, what seest thou?” she asked.

He came back with a sigh and smile for her.

“‘The Land of the Brave and the Home of the Free.’”

“Nay, for that thou wouldst look at thy feet. For thou standest on the land of the brave. And the home of the free is yonder.”

“The land of a despot,” he laughed, “asking all, giving naught.”

“Then thou art its despot—for it is thy land—thou art its king. Oh, it is small I grant! But it is ours. No other land can ever be. Our fathers dying gave it to us.”

“See!” he cried, turning what the travellers had given him into a prodigal golden shower from his scrip upon the ground.

“What is it?” asked the girl.

“Money. Gold! Enough to take me to their land. They said so.”

“To their land? You?”

At once great fear fell on her.

“It is naught. A little journey by the sea road—a week—and one is there! They come and go each summer. They will come again the next.”

“But thou—thou wilt not go?”

“I will,” he nodded.

“Forsake thy country?”

“Yea.”

“That was our fathers’ basest treason.”

He laughed.

“And thou hast sworn to the priest—”

He laughed again.

“But evil will come from the breach of thy solemn oath—it must. God is not mocked.”

“I have not said that I will break my oath, nor do a treason, beloved one,” he said. “Can one not go and see this wondrous land?”

“Yea. But temptation is in thine eyes.”

He laughed and sighed and answered:

“Yea!”—fingering the strange coins.

Then, tempting her also, he said:

“Come with me thence?”

“I?”

The one little word told him how impossible that was.

“Yea, there are the old and blind and simple to be cared for. I forgot.”

“I covet not that land, my Christof,” said she, “nor any other land than this.”

“Beloved,” said he, solemnly, “our fate draws so near that I can see it. The ice can little longer be held back. And that is death to us and to our small land.”

“Yea,” said she, almost happily.

“Thou dost not wish to live?”

“I? I would live forever, asking but one thing—thy love. Yet, I will die here willingly, because all that I know is here—all life—all death—all joy—all hope and fear. Why, it is not hard, dear love. We have been born to it. Each morning we look first up at the glacier to read if we shall live that day.”

“Our fathers have done ill to keep us here. Ill to stay themselves. What is there here?”

He swept the air with his hand. The sun was setting on the glacier. The mountain seemed all gold. The sea was saffron.

She saw all this and said:

“The very beauty of the Lord is here!”

“A glacier to bury us. Beloved, in a little time the ice will be where we stand. There will be no harvests. No fish. What then? This has been threatened us for many years. But now it comes soon. All creatures but us have fled. And I must find ye first another land, then must ye all fly with me. And I will find it in this rich, this just, this righteous America. That is not wrong.”

She hung her head and sighed.

“What is it in thy mind?” he asked.

All her body flushed in blushes as she answered:

“Thou didst say that when the harvest was taken thou wouldst marry me.”

“Yea,” he cried, touching her, “and that is now! Come to Agra. And when we are married, thou thyself shalt send me forth to seek a home for thee and them that hang on us—in this new land.”

She was not glad for this, yet all her heart sung at being his wife.

“I am so happy that I will not say thee nay to-day—though I would keep thee here to die and sleep upon the mountain with our fathers—though it were but a little while. Yet if thou wilt—why—yes, go—I send thee.”

“Ah, ah,” he cried, “that is like the Viking ladies of the olden time! This country where I go and all its boundlessness are mine and thine and all who come alike. And all its wealth and houses. I will go in haste, and when I have found a pretty nest for thee and all of us, I will come with yet more haste, and when the ice comes down take thee to it. And there I shall be king as here. For there every man is as a king. Have not the pleasant travellers told me so?”

“Oh, Christof, I cannot help my fear! Yet thou shalt go!”

“Look at these mighty hands,” he cried passionately, “look at me! Will there be any braver there? Will any outstrip me in the race for gold and all those things they seem to need out there? Am I not great as they who went away to-day? Yet they have conquered that vast world. But a little time—think! but a little waiting—and no more cold or hunger—fear or death. The little harvest and the fish now caught will give ye food for all the while I stay. And when I come again, yea we shall wait God’s word—But when the ice comes down we shall leave it rotting in its bins and go away to happiness. Come! come to our marriage!”

And so they went away with arms entwined, and, singing, came to blind Agra, who married them.

III
TO THE LAND OF THE BRAVE

Then came the day he was to go. They gathered up that money, yet lying on the shore, and put it in his scrip, and all was ready—he in his wolfskin—she in her stole; yet she trembled as with palsy in his arms.

“What? Hast thou changed?” he laughed.

“Ah, ah,” she sighed, “thou art my husband now! I am a wife!”

Tears would not flow she was so terrified. No sob rose in her throat. She only trembled in his arms.

“Ah, this is not the lady of my dreams,” he said. “Come! come! Out with thy shears. Give me a tress for talisman, as the ladies of our Vikings did, and send me forth. Let me not stay. Call me a coward that I go. Come! come!”

“I cannot bid thee go,” she breathed; “my heart will not. Yea, we are poor and hungry here, sometimes, but stay with us thy kindred, who love thee and will stand with thee when dark days come. There thou wilt be alone! A stranger in a land of strangers. Life is a hard thing here—yea—but stay and share it with us—make it not harder. Thou art brave—the bravest on the earth to me. That is why God hath left thee to care for us—of all those who are dead. Seest thou not His hand in this?”

“Yea.”

“Then must thou obey.”

“I see it not as thou. I see and hear God’s will in this longing for another land—in the coming of the travellers to tell me of it.”

Her face grew solemn.

“I did not think of that. How shallow is my thought! And selfish. I fear all selfish. Because I wish for thee to stay, my heart sees in each wish to go a sin against the God. And yet—and yet—it does not seem His will. Oh, husband, if it is, canst thou not make it plain to me who have little thoughts—thou with thy eagle thought?”

“Nay—nay,” and he caressed her fondly. “I have made thee sad. What? A sad bride? Even under the glacier? It shall not be!”

But yet, the while she nestled in his arms, she begged:

“Yet, love, speak to my soul and make all plain to me.”

“We will obey the God, my splendid one. I go now but to find a nest for thee and these when God Himself doth make this land impossible.”

“Beloved, if God doth make this land impossible, then is it His purpose that we shall cease with the land as we began. And that is just, as all God’s dealings are. Oh, it is ominous that thou a man, and I a woman, whom God made, should think to thwart His purposes in us or in this land! Thou canst not change the purposes of God, beloved.”

“Does not God mean that we shall use the powers He gives us?”

“Yea—where He points the way.”

“And who points the way to me? Who puts these things into my brain?”

This reasoning was better to her. And it all was new—so great a thought as that.

“I have not reasoned deep as that,” she said in awe. “Surely, thy thought is greater and more reverent—than mine—as, indeed, a husband’s should be greater than a wife’s,” she said in pretty pride of him. “I try, just now, to think the travellers did put the purpose in thee. Yet, somewhere, no matter how it came to thee, it had beginning in the mind of God. I know not,” she whispered. “If thou thinkest it the will of God—thou shalt go. To Him all oaths and promises against His will are vanity and sin.”

“Beloved, if I stay, it will be alone to tread the mill and build me and thee a house yonder with the dead. God does not desire that. That is our destiny—our only destiny. To be hungry—poor—naked—to starve—to waste—to be drowned in still waters—to sleep in decay yonder. If I go, the very world is mine and all it has. That is God’s will.”

“I am thy joy, Christof,” pleaded his young wife. “So thou hast often said. And I will give thee all my little life to make thee happy here. I think I can. Oh, we will be hungry—yea—and poor—but we will be together. There is no other life for me. Is there for thee? Together, Christof!”

“I cannot go without thy well-wishing,” he smiled and caressed her; “but my wife will give me that and send me forth. She will not make me wear a young life out here that might be great and honored there. She has it in her splendid head that it will be for long and far. It is a week to the great land. A week to find a nest. A week to come again. Canst thou not wait and ward three weeks for paradise? Could I fail, if that is in thy head, when it is for the helpless ones upon our hands and hearts and for—thee? Now, for thy talisman of success. I will preserve it from all harm and bring it back to thee. I swear it on this pretty hand. Thus did our ancestors go forth. Art thou less brave than they? Am I?”

There was a moment in which nothing was heard but the sullen beating of the waves. She was so sad that almost he was persuaded to renounce ambition for her love. But his eye caught the sun upon a distant sail.

“There!” cried he. “It shall be as swift as that!”

“Why, then, my husband, go. I think it is the good God prompts thee. Else thou couldst not go from us who need thee so. And, if ’tis He—why—He knows thy heart—and He will go with thee and keep thee, and bring thee back to us. Thou art our all. For that I pray. For that each night we all shall pray. So—Christof—go with God. And I, thy Christine—I will stay and keep thine oath for thee—here in our little land—I will not forsake one of the little ones—not one of the old or blind or maimed or simple ones. And I shall have joy in this—remember that! Great joy shall I have in keeping thy oath for thee—to the priest—thy ancestors—thy God—until thou comest back to keep it once again thyself. Farewell, O sweetest lover ever woman had, farewell until thou comest back to me again!”

She took the brazen shears which hung at her belt and, cutting an unruly lock, she put it in his hands while her white lips moved in benediction.

And so he went, looking last upon her at that turning of the road, and she, there, her last on him.

IV
THE HOME OF THE FREE

There is a city which vaunts itself because in its laws oppression and injustice are not; where the popular shibboleth is freedom; whence liberty throughout all the land hath of old been proclaimed; where the proudest boast writ upon its monuments is of the sublime quality of its justice.

A great bell booms the hour of ten, and at the last reverberation the judge of the Quarter Sessions of the Peace advances from his retiring room and takes his place upon the bench. The crier raps the chamber to silence and delivers the customary invitation of the Commonwealth to the Falstaffian company being marshalled into the receiving docks.

“Oyez! oyez! oyez! All manner of persons who stand bound to appear before this honorable court, holden here this day, come forward, and ye shall be heard. And may God save the Commonwealth and this honorable court.”

Instantly a felon starts forward to the bar. An officer restrains him. The benchers laugh. He has accepted the invitation of the Commonwealth too literally. He cannot come forward and be heard.

The grand jury must first second the invitation of the State.

This body now files into its place.

“Gentlemen of the grand jury, have you any bills of indictment to present to the court?” the crier asks, and is rewarded with a considerable parcel.

The clerk scrutinizes these, the court does likewise, and then they come into the hands of the prosecuting officer, who briskly takes one from the top and calls a name:

“Christof Nielsen!”

Meanwhile, in seeming confusion, the grand jury is discharged and the petit jury called, and sworn.

“You, and each of you, do swear that you will well and truly try, and a true deliverance make, between the Commonwealth and the prisoner at the bar, whom you will have in charge, and a true verdict render, according to the evidence, so help you God.”

Again the crier calls:

“Put Christof Nielsen in the dock!”

At the name a haggard face emerges from the herd in the dock. The head is hooped about with blood-stained bandages—the face is bruised and swollen—one arm hangs limp and helpless at his side—with the other he steadies himself at the spiked railing as he obeys the court officer’s gesture to stand.

He no longer wears the wolfskin tunic—but a worn “sack-coat” too small for him. His neck and the circlet of wolf’s teeth are concealed by the collar of a flannel shirt. Trousers are on his legs instead of the skins and cross-garterings, and on his feet, where once were the great shoes of furred wolfskin, are hard shoes “made in America,” which torture his feet. His hair has lost its sunlustre and is cut short. In his hand he carries a small cloth cap.

“Christof Nielsen,” reads the clerk, “you are charged in this bill of indictment with the larceny of one silver watch, of the value of four dollars, the property of John Hall. How say you, guilty or not guilty?”

The prisoner lifts his dull, sick eyes, for the first time, when the voice of the clerk ceases, and stares inquiringly at the officer at his side.

“Not guilty,” answers the officer for him.

“Put him in the small dock,” commands the prosecuting officer, and the prisoner is marched, staggering, from the one dock to the other, the gate clangs to behind him, and he is upon his trial by his “peers”—the twelve “good men and true” yonder.

There are no challenges. The prosecutor of the pleas challenges only for the Commonwealth, and the prisoner is not assisted by counsel. Instead, the Commonwealth’s officer opens his case to the jury.

“Gentlemen of the jury, the charge is pocket picking. In the mêlée consequent upon the arrest the prisoner assaulted an officer. For that, also, he is indicted upon a separate bill. I shall try both together. It will be for you to say upon such evidence as I shall produce whether or not he is guilty and, if so, of which or both offences. Officer Gorman, take the stand.”

Gorman is emulous to oblige the attorney for the State.

“You made this arrest. Tell the jury all about it.”

There is much jockeying before Gorman is brought to his pace. He would wander into the enchanting by-paths of his adventure, to show his heroism. But the prosecuting officer will not permit this, and so the gist of his testimony is in this answer:

“I arrested that man there and run him in.”

“You searched him, of course, and what did you find?”

“These here.”

He holds up a letter with a curl dangling from its broken end.

The benchers laugh.

“Nothing else? No watch?”

“No. I expect he throwed that into a sewer. They mostly do when we git after ’em.”

“Did he escape from you?”

“He tried to. I had to both club and shoot to git him. He’s strong.”

“You were obliged to call for assistance?”

“Yes.”

“Has he ever been arrested before?”

“Yes. Served a term of seven months five years ago.”

“Do you identify the man?”

“Yes.”

“Let an officer inform the prisoner of his rights,” says the district attorney, in the meantime calling Officer Jaspar to the stand.

The “rights” of the prisoner are to cross-examine the witness. The officer who gives him this information must lift the prisoner’s wounded head from his bosom to do it. And, when he releases it again, it returns there.

Officer Jaspar is the one who assisted Gorman to make the arrest, and, when he can be brought into his narrative, knows nothing which Gorman does not. He, however, had also used his club and his pistol to subdue the prisoner.

“It seems to me,” cries the Commonwealth’s officer, “that it took an extraordinary quantity of shooting and clubbing to take one man.”

“He’s a big un!” grins the witness.

“You seem to have used your pistols first?”

“Yes,” admits the officer.

“You are the prosecutor,” says the district attorney to Mr. Hall, when he is brought to the stand. “We have not, thus far, proved that a watch was taken out of your possession by this man, and without that I shall not ask for a conviction. Are you sure that it was?”

“Perfectly certain, sir,” answers Mr. Hall.

“Well, tell the facts as briefly as possible to the jury,” says the law officer, whose hope of an early adjournment and some golf begins to grow doubtful.

“Well, sir, I first saw the man at Chestnut and Tenth streets. He was walking fast, talking to himself, and he staggered. He ran against me and said something I could not understand, then went on rapidly down Chestnut Street. A moment after, when I looked what time it was, my watch was gone.”

“And the chain—was there a chain?”

“Yes, that was gone, too.”

“Broken?”

“No, the whole chain was taken.”

“Are you sure of that? It is not easy for a thief to do.”

“I am quite sure of that.”

“Then, that’s my case,” yawns the happy officer of the forum. “I shall play golf at Bala this afternoon till six,” he says to his assistant.

V
THE QUALITY OF JUSTICE

A young man sitting at the counsel table, and grown diffident the moment he finds himself on his feet, rises to address the court.

“If the court pleases,” he begins, and the court awakes with a start from a revery of dinner.

“Eh? Who is he?” the court whispers to the district attorney.

The officer scowls back and answers that he does not know.

The young man has heard.

“I am John Forrest, if the court pleases, admitted yesterday.”

“Precisely, sir,” smiles the court, icily; “but you are interrupting the trial of a cause. Your motion will have to wait until it is concluded—unless it is imperative.”

“It is imperative,” says the young lawyer.

“Ah, then, proceed,” says the judge, “and pray be brief.”

“I ask leave to conduct the defence of the prisoner. I know him—I know his language—I believe him innocent.”

The prosecuting officer leaps to his feet.

“What this extraordinary young gentleman believes is of no consequence to us, your honor. Let him appear for the prisoner—if the prisoner wishes to have it so. I should consider it extra hazardous. The constitution countenances this sort of aberration, however, so I suppose we must suffer it—though the case is at an end.”

The district attorney calculates that he will be a half-hour late at the links. The court nods his assent, and takes up the fascinating menu which has been sent over to him from the Union League, to whet his appetite upon. He will dine there to-night with the witty Grover Club.

The young lawyer has addressed a few words to the prisoner and has taken his hand. Instantly the inert head rises. The fires of life and hope once more light the eyes for an instant. His tongue is loosed. He is the Viking again—the lion at bay. The young lawyer assures him with the overconfidence of youth that all will be well. That they have proved nothing.

At once the eyes are dull again, the head droops as before.

“Ah, they! It is the doom of God. They are only instruments of God. I do not hate them. I hate them no more than I should hate the axe of the executioner. Last night—and, yea, for many nights I saw Estan, the priest. I heard him say again: ‘I do fear the things that will come upon thee and our land!’ Go! It is the doom of God!”

At this moment the district attorney, seeing his time for golf being dissipated, says to the court:

“If your honor pleases, unless the defence is ready to proceed at once, I shall ask your honor to give the case to the jury on its default.”

Forrest takes his place.

“I recall all the witnesses for the Commonwealth for cross-examination,” says the young lawyer to the court.

“Object!” shouts the district attorney, on his feet at once. “The prisoner failed to take advantage of this right when it was offered to him and his counsel sat idly by. It is too late now. I won’t try the case all over again.”

“I think,” says the smiling court, “that I shall permit this. It is not your right, sir,”—to the counsel for the prisoner—“but the easiest way is the best, in law as well as—elsewhere.”

He smiles down upon the district attorney, as if he were saying:

“You will get your game the sooner, I will get my dinner hot.”

“Proceed!” is all the officer of the Commonwealth has to say.

It is the young counsel’s first examination of a witness.

“Officer Gorman,” he says, with a child’s savagery, “yi—you were here—bif—before?”

“Sure!” answers the officer, with a grin, and now the gentlemen of the bar laugh with the benchers, and even the court lays down the gilt menu and smiles broadly.

But, these things are good. They crowd upon the young champion of the prisoner a tremendous sense of the responsibility he has assumed. He addresses the court foolishly but seriously:

“I shall beg in advance the indulgence of the court. I have never before tried a case. I shall make some blunders in trying this one. But, sir, I have undertaken, here, upon the instant, without preparation, the defence of that priceless thing—a man’s liberty—nay, his life! For he is sick and hopeless unto death. And, unless he is taken from this court to an hospital, upon our hands will be not only his liberty but his life. Sir, I have been taught, I am sure this court has been taught, before it ascended the three steps which lead to the bench, that liberty is a holy thing. That it is a nobler quest, in this forum, to stand its champion than in that other to contend for those priceful things which may be measured in money. Am I wrong, sir, to do this? Do the gentlemen of the bar laugh for that reason? If they laugh at me, in God’s name let them do so. But, let no one laugh at such a solemn spectacle as this—Look! Look at the man! Look about! Was ever man save He that suffered on the cross so friendless and alone? such a stranger among strangers?”

“Proceed!” shouts the district attorney.

The court nods in assent.

“When your opportunity comes, Mr.—Mr.—”

“Forrest,” prompts the lawyer.

“—to address the jury, they may be interested in—er—your views—upon—er—liberty. The court—has—er—heard them often. Proceed, sir, with your witness.”

Under this brutality John Forrest has become the steady practitioner of a dozen years.

“You know nothing about this watch, or its taking?”

“No.”

“Then why did you arrest him?”

“On complaint of Mr. Hall.”

“You had no warrant?”

“No.”

The lawyer turns to the court.

“Upon the testimony of the man who made the arrest it was an illegal seizure. He must have had a warrant unless he saw the commission of the offence. I move his discharge from custody.”

“Object,” said the district attorney, and the court instantly rules the objection sustained.

“Proceed, sir.”

“Then, I ask the court to rule upon the question of whether or not the prisoner was justified in resisting an illegal arrest.”

The district attorney objects again, and the court again frankly sustains him. The easiest way is certainly being proved the best—for him.

Nothing is developed from the other witnesses, who repeat their testimony. The prosecutor remembers distinctly having his watch, though he knew nothing of its taking.

Then the young champion puts the prisoner upon the stand. Now, if God’s pity ever descends to temper the rigor of human judgment, here is its invocation—

His story is little and simple as his counsel translates it.

He had arrived in the city three days before. He gave a runner his last money to procure him work, but he did not return. And he waited and hungered and walked the streets, neither sleeping nor eating. He staggered against the prosecutor—yes—blindly—in an agony—he apologized—but the man called out—officers came—they shot at him—he fell—and then he opened his eyes as they saw him—bloody—maimed in a prison—

Then there is something which the young attorney hesitates to translate until he is charged with concealing testimony which will injure his case:

“‘It is the doom of God,’” he repeats then. “‘God meant me to stay and die in the ice. But I defied His purposes and came here. God is taking His vengeance. It is useless. These things are come upon me and my country because of sin. I must suffer them. They must. It is the doom of God!’”

“Oh! Is he THAT sort?” laughs the district attorney, and the benchers laugh with him.

The court declines to be amused. It takes time to be amused. And he has none to spare—before dinner.

The prosecuting officer, with a significant smile, declines to cross-examine, and so far as the Commonwealth is concerned, submits the case without argument to the jury. His assistant questions the propriety of this.

“Always wins,” he laughs. “The jury think either that it is not worth while, or that I think it safe, and agree accordingly. Juries haven’t much mind, you know. Besides, think of those idle golf sticks!” They laugh together. “And, further, it will flabbergast the doughty champion of the foreign gentleman. He won’t know how to begin—since he will have nothing of mine to answer or suggest.”

VI
THE FOOLISHNESS OF PREACHING

This seems true. Forrest knows the trick, and now he rises with manifest fear and trembling.

“Although the Commonwealth does not care to address you,” he says, “I conceive it my duty to do so—”

“I told you he would be caught,” whispers the district attorney to his assistant, in glee. “There is only one counter to that trick, and that is to submit your own case. Then the jury is compelled to think that the defence has as much or more confidence in its case than the Commonwealth. For it has more to gain from a speech.”

“—It is not proven that a watch has been stolen, nor that an officer was assaulted, yet that is exactly and only what the prisoner is charged with. All that is proven is that a man had a watch before he collided with the prisoner, and that he did not have it afterward. The law in its mercy has provided that every man shall be presumed innocent until he is proven guilty—proven, remember!—not guessed guilty—”

His address is now, unfortunately, to the court, who is getting more and more hungry.

“Why, sir, if anybody be guilty here, I am the one. But a short while ago I was his guest in that little kingdom hedged by the mountain and the glacier. I sang to him the stirring songs of our country. Those songs of which the theme is liberty alone! I thrilled his very soul with the tales of its freedom and justice and equality. I watched his nostrils expand at the words of our great battle-hymn. I beguiled him here with these things—though I did not mean to. And he came—to you, Columbia, land of the brave, who hold out your arms to all the nations of the earth and cry Come! You—you—who invited him! And you meet him with pistol and club and shackles; the home of the free is a prison! He begs for a crust, and you give him a bullet. And what has he done? He has but entered the door you hold open to him. And what will you do? Sick, wounded, and miserable—in peril of his life—at your own hands—what is your verdict? He is in your keeping. And as you hope for mercy at the great day, as you respect the sanctity of your oath, deal in justice and mercy with this stranger who has come within your opened gates—”

“One of the difficulties of the young lawyer is to know when he is done,” says the district attorney, slyly, leaning his elbow on the bench and speaking to the judge.

The judge nods in a certain gastric irritation which is not well for either the prisoner or his counsel, but answers nothing.

“And to cease from college orations in a court of law. Somewhere these things should be taught as part of the law course. I am not aware that they are.”

The champion perspires and plunges on—when he had better stop—as any one but he—even the meanest of the benchers—can see.

“And there are others in your—keeping, beyond that moaning sea—beside that desolate mountain—by that frozen glacier—on that little spot of earth where the ice always threatens. There they sit desolated—by the graves of their kindred—waiting for him. For he came to make a home for them. Will you send him back to them? Will you send them even the wreck you have made of him? So that he may die there and lie with his fathers? So that he may once more embrace his young wife? Touch the hand of blind Agra? Make smile again simple Lars?”

The advocate pauses a moment and his face grows stern with the duty he has set himself.

“He thinks the doom of God is upon him. But it is the doom of the American system. The doom of the American administration of justice. The doom of the American jury—which gives never the verdict of twelve, but of four or three or two—most often of one. In this day of reason verdicts should be the result of reason. But they are, as they were in the Middle Ages, the result of force. Twelve men are imprisoned together until seven men yield to five. Not because the five have better reasons, but because they are stronger—either in mind or body. Because they can better endure privation and hunger and segregation. Five are set to prey upon seven in a place they cannot escape from until the morality of the seven is sufficiently broken and corrupted to vote, not for the righteousness of justice, but for release from incarceration. And this the judges permit because they must hurry. Because the hours are fixed from ten to three—and because in that time twenty-five causes must be heard. Because officers of courts are politicians and must work—after hours—for the party. Because, in short, everything is well considered in a court but the securing of exact justice. And in small cases such as this—where it is a foreigner who does not understand us or our language or procedure—what does it matter? He is a foreigner anyhow. This is the doom he faces and which every one must face—until our courts concern themselves with but the one thing for which they are—the administration of justice—the discovery of truth!”

The district attorney sighs and knows that neither the young advocate nor his cause nor his client has a friend within hearing now. As for him, he is indifferent, and would gladly see the man acquitted could he but get away to his game. What profit or honor is there in so small a case as this?

“Are you that kind of a jury? Is this that kind of a court? Is this the kind of victim who has come here for sacrifice time out of mind? Can this man’s life and liberty be trusted to you? Is there a man among you—five—six—twelve—who can stop and think only of this poor captive? Can you so far escape from the American system as to consider pure justice and nothing else? Dare you imagine yourselves in his place and then consider what you would do—what you would wish done by the twelve who sit where you do? Have you the courage to treat this as you would treat a ‘great’ case?—with many ‘great’ attorneys? Dare you defy the court—the district attorney—the laughter of these idlers—and send this man back to his home? I am asking much—I know that. It is revolution to disagree from the court—to offend the district attorney. But I do so now and shall always.”

And now fear and embarrassment have fled from the young advocate and he is informed only with his great theme. His voice suddenly rings and thunders about the walls, so that the judge sits uncomfortably up and the benchers lean forward, and even the gentlemen of the bar are silent.

“And if you will not send him back to them, what message will you send? You cannot escape. You must do one or the other. And one will be infamy, the other will be as the grace of the Lord. Listen, each man of you twelve! It is a commandment you hear. Something more than myself is speaking through me. And look! Look at him, each one of you! For you are writing your own glorification or your own damnation in the sentence of this humble captive. I say to you, in the presence of God, that you cannot escape your duty. If you will not send this remnant of a man you have wounded home to his country, what message will you send—to them that wait and wait and wait? You! You twelve! Hope, joy, bread, feasting, life? Or the sullen clang of the prison door—the horrid, shuddering clang—which is a knell of death? For your verdict, whether you will it so or not, means life or death not only to him who is chained there before you—but to them!”

A juror shakes his head in protest—a thing which the fatuous pleader should regard. But he speaks an answer instead:

“I tell you I know. For I have seen. There are aged heads bent low by misfortune—there are little children, there is a wife—young and fair and red-lipped. Do you condemn them to hunger—to cold—to slow death—these, huddled together, waiting—waiting—in the long gray polar night—for your word of fate, or do you send to them life and hope and joy? I ask you, before God, what message do you send? They are in your keeping as irrevocably as he is!”

VII
TO A HIGHER TRIBUNAL

Counsel for the prisoner sits down overcome by his own evocation of emotion. The more somnolent jurors scowl at him. He has made them uncomfortable. The court, now having control of the matter, hastens the adjournment.

“Gentlemen, you will find the prisoner not guilty of assaulting an officer. It is not fully proven. As to the charge of larceny, if you find that he took the watch out of the possession of the prosecutor, as he seems to think, he is guilty, and I instruct you to find him so. Otherwise, acquit him. If you are in doubt, acquit him. You have been told that there is no evidence of the larceny. That is for you, not counsel, to say.”

The jury, thinking from this that it is not much of a case, consult a moment, and are ready with their verdict—while the court taps the bench impatiently with the gilt menu. The crier asks for the verdict:

“Gentlemen of the jury, how say you? Is the prisoner at the bar guilty or not guilty?”

“Guilty, with a recommendation to the mercy of the court,” answers the foreman, yawning.

John Forrest rises to his feet, not knowing, in his confusion, what he ought to do.

“If the court pleases,” he begins, “I had expected another verdict. But since—”

“Your duty is done, sir,” smiles the chilly court, “and well done. I congratulate you, sir.” Then he turns to the jury. “Gentlemen, I cannot pass your recommendation to mercy lightly. I shall not forget it. It is better that ten guilty men escape than that one suffer innocently. I am now in a trifle of a hurry. I shall suspend sentence until I can think your recommendation well over. Crier, adjourn the court.”

The district attorney had his golf.

The judge had his witty dinner.

The recommendation to mercy was forgotten.

The sentence of the court was never passed.

A higher tribunal claimed jurisdiction.

Christof Nielsen died in his cell.

John Hall sent this note to the judge on the same day:

“My watch was in the pocket of my Sunday vest. I forgot to change it on Monday. Have that young man set free. I am sorry.”

“Let him be discharged as soon as possible,” said the righteous judge to the district attorney, flinging the note on his desk.

But death is swifter than justice when her wheels turn backward.

VIII
THE SHADOWS OF DEATH

Over the sea, many months after, a runner brings a letter to those who sit beside a failing rushlight. The faces are too white—the eyes too brilliant for well-nourished bodies. Signs of wolfish poverty abound. They are but three. The rest are dead of hunger. One is old and blind. Upon his pathetic face the shadow of death has passed. Another has the smile of the simple—tortured into pain by the tight-drawn lines of want. Another is young and fair—yes—still young and fair—but not red-lipped now. For these many months which might all be years they have borne together the weariness of this watching and cold and hunger. The ice hangs just above their small thatch now, and the sea is at the door. Yet more than the hunger of their bodies—more than the cold and terror—have been the hunger and the cold and the terror of their souls. They have prayed God with agony to let their cup pass. Is there to be no word? No sign? If God wills—yes. They have both trusted and doubted God.

Yet now they repent. Here, in this letter, is the answer to their prayers. After all God is righteous—altogether righteous! Is it to bid them come? Is it to tell them when he will come? If the first, they will go in haste—for the ice is close, as he foretold. God has spoken. If the last, he must take them quickly, or the ice will come.

They gather a little closer about the dying light. The blind one clasps his hands hard on his staff to stop their shaking. The simple face is all one ghastly smile. The wan one—wiping her dry eyes where there should be tears—kneels before them, and with a quivering supplication breaks the seal. Her face is as ashes. She has not a word in her dry throat. The writing is not his. At her silence a shiver creeps over the blind one. The simple one smiles anew.

“Ha, ha!” he says, “I am hungry!”

The enclosure falls into the lap of the wan one. A short note in a stranger hand—that unruly curl she cut for him the day he went—an old letter of her own, beginning with a love word. The note tells a brief story ending in death.

There is nothing more. These are the tidings. This is the answer to their prayers.

Yet still they sit there—like ghosts—until their stony eyes are fixed—until the smile on the simple face passes into eternal calm—until the rushlight dies, and pitying darkness falls.

When the fickle northern summer comes again it lingers wonderingly about the idle cottage doors, fixed close in the ice, pausing at one with the reverence which befits the unclosing of a tomb. It stays for but a little day, then flies before the conquering ice and comes no more.

Yet, that tomb, far out toward the eternal ice cap, where the cottage is in the embrace of the ice, was “made in America,” the land of the brave and the home of the free—while the gentlemen of the bar and the benchers laughed, and in that city whose proudest boast is of the sublime quality of its justice—because a judge was impatient for his dinner—because a prosecuting officer would play golf. Was it wrong? And who will right the wrong? And where will it be righted? Is there a forum for such causes as these? And who will be punished for it? The judge—the jury—the district attorney—all of them?