Mary Monson’s name passed from one end of the Union to the other, and thousands heard and read of this extraordinary woman, who never had the smallest clue to her real character or subsequent history. How few reflected on the defects of the system that condemned her to the gallows on insufficient testimony; or, under another phase of prejudice, might have acquitted her when guilty! The random decisions of the juries, usually well-meaning, but so rarely discriminating, or as intelligent as they ought to be, attract very little attention beyond the bar; and even the members of that often strike a balance in error, with which they learn to be content; gaining in one cause as much as they lose in another.
There was a strong disposition in the people assembled at Biberry, on the occasion of the trial, to make a public spectacle of Mary Monson. The right to do this, with all things in heaven and earth, seems to belong to “republican simplicity,” which is beginning to rule the land with a rod of iron. Unfortunately for this feeling, the subject of momentary sympathy was not a person likely to allow such a license. She did not believe, because she had endured one set of atrocious wrongs, that she was bound to submit to as many more as gaping vulgarity might see fit to inflict. She sought the protection of good Mrs. Gott and her gaol, some forms being necessary before the sentence of death could be legally gotten rid of. In vain were the windows again crowded, with the virtuous wish of seeing how Mary Monson looked, now she was acquitted, just as they had been previously thronged in order to ascertain how she looked when there was a chance of her being condemned to the gallows. The most extraordinary part of the affair, was the circumstance that the harp became popular; the very sentiment, act, or thing that, in one condition of the common mind, is about to be ‘cut down and cast into the fire,’ becoming in another, all that is noble, commendable, or desirable. The crowd about the windows of the gaol, for the first few hours after the acquittal, was dying to hear the prisoner sing and play, and would gladly have tolerated the harp and a ‘foreign tongue’ to be thus gratified.
But Mary Monson was safe from all intrusion, under the locks of the delighted Mrs. Gott. This kind-hearted person kissed her prisoner, over and over again, when she admitted her within the gallery, and then she went outside, and assured several of the more respectable persons in the crowd how thoroughly she had been persuaded, from the first, of the innocence of her friend. The circumstances of this important trial rendered Mrs. Gott a very distinguished person herself, in that crowd, and never was a woman happier than she while delivering her sentiments on the recent events.
“It’s altogether the most foolish trial we have ever had in Duke’s, though they tell me foolish trials are getting to be only too common,” said the kind-hearted wife of the sheriff, addressing half-a-dozen of the more respectable of the crowd. “It gave me a big fright, I will own.[own.] When Gott was elected sheriff, I did hope he would escape all executions but debt executions.[executions.] The more he has of them, the better. It’s bad enough to escort thieves to Sing-Sing; but the gallows is a poor trade for a decent man to meddle with. Then, to have the very first sentence, one against Mary Monson, who is as much above such a punishment as virtue is above vice. When I heard those dreadful words, I felt as if a cord was round my own neck. But I had faith to the last; Mary has always told me that she should be acquitted, and here it has all come true, at last.”
“Do you know, Mrs. Gott,” said one of her friends, “it is reported that this woman—or lady, I suppose one must now call her—has been in the habit of quitting the gaol whenever she saw fit.”
“Hu-s-h, neighbor Brookes; there is no need of alarming the county! I believe you are right; though it was all done without my knowledge, or it never would have been permitted. It only shows the power of money. The locks are as good as any in the State; yet Mary certainly did find means, unbeknown to me, to open them. It can’t be called breaking gaol, since she always came back! I had a good fright the first time I heard of it, but use reconciles us to all things. I never let Gott into the secret, though he’s responsible, as he calls it, for all his prisoners.”
“Well, when a matter turns out happily, it does no good to be harping on it always.”
Mrs. Gott assented, and in this case, as in a hundred others, the end was made to justify the means. But Mary Monson was felt to be an exception to all rules, and there was no longer any disposition to cavil at any of her proceedings. Her innocence had been established so very triumphantly, that every person regarded her vagaries and strange conduct with indulgence.
At that very moment, when Mrs. Gott was haranguing her neighbours at the door of the gaol, Dunscomb was closeted with Michael Millington at the Inn; the young man having returned at hot-speed only as the court adjourned. He had been successful, notwithstanding his original disappointment, and had ascertained all about the hitherto mysterious prisoner of the Biberry gaol. Mary Monson was, as Dunscomb suspected, Mildred Millington by birth—Mad. de Larocheforte by marriage—and she was the grand-daughter of the very woman to whom he had been betrothed in youth. Her insanity was not distinctly recognised, perhaps could not have been legally established, though it was strongly suspected by many who knew her intimately, and was a source of great uneasiness with all who felt an interest in her welfare. Her marriage was unhappy, and it was supposed she had taken up her abode in the cottage of the Goodwins to avoid her husband. The command of money gave her a power to do very much as she pleased, and, though the breath of calumny had never yet blown its withering blast on her name, she erred in many things that are duties as grave as that of being chaste. The laws came in aid of her whims and caprices. There is no mode by which an errant wife can be made to perform her duties in boldly experimenting New York, though she can claim a support and protection from her husband. The ‘cup and saucer’ law comes in aid of this power, and the men who cannot keep their wives in the chains of Hymen in virtue of the affections, may just as well submit, with a grace, to be the victims of an ill-judging and most treacherous regard for the rights of what are called the weaker sex.