Ten minutes afterwards the verdict of manslaughter was returned against the defendant, who was considered, in a speech from the judge, sufficiently punished by the affliction which suck an accident must produce to a generous mind. The court broke up, and Fielding, probably to show how deep was his remorse, gave three cheers, to which the whole court answered with a hurrah, and the merchant was called upon to treat the whole company: of course he complied, and they all left the court house. Gabriel and I remained behind. He had often tried to persuade me to abandon my ideas of going to the States and Europe, pointing out to me that I should be made a dupe and become a prey to pretended well-wishers. He had narrated to me many incidents of his own life, of his folly and credulity, which had thrown him from an eminent station in civilised society, and had been the cause of our meeting in the Western World. He forewarned me that I should be disappointed in my expectations, and reap nothing but vexation and disappointment.
He knew the world too well, I knew nothing of it, and I thought that he was moved by bitterness of spirit to rail so loud against it. He would fain persuade me to return with him to my own tribe of Shoshones, and not go in search of what I never should obtain. He was right, but I was obstinate. He did not let pass this opportunity of giving me a lesson.
“You have now witnessed,” said he, “a sample of justice in this soi-disant civilised country. Two hundred dollars, perhaps, have cleared a murderer; ten millions would not have done it among the Shoshones.”
“But Texas is not Europe,” replied I.
“No,” said Gabriel, “it is not; but in Europe, as in Texas, with money you can do anything, without money nothing.”
At that moment we perceived a man wrapt in his blanket, and leaning against a tree.
He surveyed the group receding to the tavern, and the deepest feelings of hatred and revenge were working evidently within him. He saw us not, so intense were his thoughts. It was the plaintiff whose son had been murdered. Gabriel resumed:
“Now, mark that man; he was the plaintiff, the father of the young fellow so shamefully plundered and murdered; he is evidently a poor farmer, or the assassin would have been hung. He is now brooding over revenge; the law gave not justice, he will take it into his own hands, and he will probably have it to-night, or to-morrow. Injustice causes crime, and ninety-nine out of a hundred are forced into it by the impotency of the law; they suffer once, and afterwards act towards others as they have been acted by. That man may have been till this day a good, industrious, and hospitable farmer; to-night he will be a murderer, in a week he will have joined the free bands, and will then revenge himself upon society at large, for the injustice he has received from a small portion of the community.”
Till then I had never given credit to my friend for any great share of penetration, but he prophesied truly. Late in the night the father announced his intention of returning to his farm, and entered the general sleeping-room of the hotel to light a cigar. A glance informed him of all that he wished to know. Forty individuals were ranged sleeping in their blankets, alongside of the walls, which, as I have observed, were formed of pine logs, with a space of four or six inches between each: parallel with the wall, next to the yard, lay the murderer Fielding.
The father left the room, to saddle his horse. An hour afterwards the report of a rifle was heard, succeeded by screams and cries of “Murder! help! murder!” Every one in the sleeping-room was up in a moment, lights were procured, and the judge was seen upon his knees with his hands upon his hinder quarters; his neighbour Fielding was dead, and the same ball which had passed through his back and chest had blazed the bark off the nether parts of this pillar of Texian justice.