“This precious Code does allow such a bargain to be made between the counsel and his client, or any other bargain that is not downright conspiracy,” returned Dunscomb; “but I do not see what is to be shared, even should Mary Monson be hanged.”
“Do not speak in that manner of so agreeable a person,” cried Timms, actually manifesting emotion—“it is unpleasant to think of. It is true, a conviction will not bring money to the prosecution, unless it should bring to light some of Mrs. Goodwin’s hoards.”
Dunscomb shrugged his shoulders, and his associate proceeded with his narrative. Two of the reporters were offended, and their allusions to the cause, which were almost daily in their respective journals, were ill-natured, and calculated to do great harm, though so far covered as to wear an air of seeming candour. The natural effect of this “constant dropping,” in a community accustomed to refer everything to the common mind, had been “to wear away the stone.” Many of those who, at first, had been disposed to sustain the accused, unwilling to believe that one so young, so educated, so modest in deportment, so engaging in manners, and of the gentler sex, could possibly be guilty of the crimes imputed, were now changing their opinions, under the control of this potent and sinister mode of working on the public sentiment. The agents employed by Timms to counteract this malign influence had failed of their object; they working merely for money, while those of the other side were resenting what they regarded as an affront.
The family of the Burtons, the nearest neighbours of the Goodwins, no longer received Timms with the frank cordiality that they had manifested in the earlier period of his intercourse with them. Then, they had been communicative, eager to tell all that they knew, and, as the lawyer fancied, even a little more; while they were now reserved, uneasy, and indisposed to let one-half of the real facts within their knowledge be known. Timms thought they had been worked upon, and that they might expect some hostile and important testimony from that quarter. The consultation ended by an exclamation from Dunscomb on the subject of the abuses that were so fast creeping into the administration of justice, rendering the boasted freemen of America, though in a different mode, little more likely to receive its benefit from an unpolluted stream, than they who live under the worn out and confessedly corrupt systems of the old world. Such is the tendency of things, and such one of the ways of the hour.[hour.]
CHAPTER XV
“Are those her ribs through which the sun
Did peer, as through a grate;
And is that woman all her crew?
Is that a Death, and are there two?
Is Death that woman’s mate.”