The venerable presiding judge was supposed to be unfriendly to the accused, and the State's Attorney was known to be personally, as well as officially, hostile to his interests. So strongly were the minds of the people prejudiced upon one side or the other that it was with much trouble that twelve men could be found who had not made up their opinions as to the prisoner's innocence or guilt. At length, however, a jury was empaneled, and the trial commenced. When the prisoner was placed at the bar, and asked the usual question, "Guilty or not guilty?" some of the old haughtiness curled the lip and flashed from the eye of Thurston Willcoxen, as though he disdained to answer a charge so base; and he replied in a low, scornful tone:
"Not guilty, your honor."
The opening charge of the State's Attorney had been carefully prepared. Mr. Thomson had never in his life had so important a case upon his hands, and he was resolved to make the most of it. His speech was well reasoned, logical, eloquent. To destroy in the minds of the jury every favorable impression left by the late blameless and beneficent life of Mr. Willcoxen, he did not fail to adduce, from olden history, and from later times, every signal instance of depravity, cloaked with hypocrisy, in high places; he enlarged upon wolves in sheeps' clothing—Satan in an angel's garb, and dolefully pointed out how many times the indignant question of—"Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?"—had been answered by results in the affirmative. He raked up David's sin from the ashes of ages. Where was the scene of that crime, and who was its perpetrator—in the court of Israel, by the King of Israel—a man after God's own heart. Could the gentlemen of the jury be surprised at the appalling discovery so recently made, as if great crimes in high places were impossible or new things under the sun? He did not fail to draw a touching picture of the victim, the beautiful, young stranger-girl, whom they all remembered and loved—who had come, an angel of mercy, on a mission of mercy, to their shores. Was not her beauty, her genius, her goodness—by which all there had at some time been blessed—sufficient to save her from the knife of the assassin? No! as he should shortly prove. Yet all these years her innocent blood had cried to Heaven in vain; her fate was unavenged, her manes unappeased.
All the women, and all the simple-hearted and unworldly among the men, were melted into tears, very unpropitious to the fate of Thurston; tears not called up by the eloquence of the prosecuting attorney, so much as by the mere allusion to the fate of Marian, once so beloved, and still so fresh in the memories of all.
Thurston heard all this—not in the second-hand style with which I have summed it up—but in the first vital freshness, when it was spoken with a logic, force, and fire that carried conviction to many a mind. Thurston looked upon the judge—his face was stern and grave. He looked upon the jury—they were all strangers, from distant parts of the county, drawn by idle curiosity to the scene of trial, and arriving quite unprejudiced. They were not his "peers," but, on the contrary, twelve as stolid-looking brothers as ever decided the fate of a gentleman and scholar. Thence he cast his eyes over the crowd in the court-room.
There were his parishioners! hoary patriarchs and gray-haired matrons, stately men and lovely women, who, from week to week, for many years, had still hung delighted on his discourses, as though his lips had been touched with fire, and all his words inspired! There they were around him again! But oh! how different the relations and the circumstances! There they sat, with stern brows and averted faces, or downcast eyes, and "lips that scarce their scorn forbore." No eye or lip among them responded kindly to his searching gaze, and Thurston turned his face away again; for an instant his soul sunk under the pall of despair that fell darkening upon it. It was not conviction in the court he thought of—he would probably be acquitted by the court—but what should acquit him in public opinion? The evidence that might not be strong enough to doom him to death would still be sufficient to destroy forever his position and his usefulness. No eye, thenceforth, would meet his own in friendly confidence. No hand grasp his in brotherly fellowship.
The State's Attorney was still proceeding with his speech. He was now stating the case, which he promised to prove by competent witnesses—how the prisoner at the bar had long pursued his beautiful but hapless victim—how he had been united to her by a private marriage—that he had corresponded with her from Europe—that upon his return they had frequently met—that the prisoner, with the treachery that would soon be proved to be a part of his nature, had grown weary of his wife, and transferred his attentions to another and more fortune-favored lady—and finally, that upon the evening of the murder he had decoyed the unhappy young lady to the fatal spot, and then and there effected his purpose. The prosecuting attorney made this statement, not with the brevity with which it is here reported, but with a minuteness of detail and warmth of coloring that harrowed up the hearts of all who heard it. He finished by saying that he should call the witnesses in the order of time corresponding with the facts they came to prove.
"Oliver Murray will take the stand."
This, the first witness called, after the usual oath, deposed that he had first seen the prisoner and the deceased together in the Library of Congress; had overheard their conversation, and suspecting some unfairness on the part of the prisoner, had followed the parties to the navy yard, where he had witnessed their marriage ceremony.
"When was the next occasion upon which you saw the prisoner?"