The ways of the hour

by James Fenimore Cooper

The penalty and forfeit of my bond.

Shylock.

The eyes of Dunscomb were fastened intently on the female stranger, as she advanced to the place occupied by the witnesses. Her features denoted agitation, certainly; but he saw no traces of guilt. It seemed so improbable, moreover, that a young woman of her years and appearance should be guilty of so dark an offence, and that for money, too, that all the chances were in favour of her innocence. Still, there were suspicious circumstances, out of all question, connected with her situation; and he was too much experienced in the strange and unaccountable ways of crime, not to be slow to form his conclusions.

The face of Mary Monson was now fully exposed; it being customary to cause female witnesses to remove their hats, in order that the jurors may observe their countenances. And what a countenance it was! Feminine, open, with scarce a trace of the ordinary passions about it, and illuminated from within, as we have already intimated. The girl might have been twenty, though she afterwards stated her age to be a little more than twenty-one—perhaps the most interesting period of a female’s existence. The features were not particularly regular, and an artist might have discovered various drawbacks on her beauty, if not positive defects; but no earthly being could have quarrelled with the expression. That was a mixture of intelligence, softness, spirit, and feminine innocence, that did not fail to produce an impression on a crowd which had almost settled down into a firm conviction of her guilt. Some even doubted, and most of those present thought it very strange.

The reporters began to write, casting their eyes eagerly towards this witness; and John Dunscomb, who sat near them, soon discovered that there were material discrepancies in their descriptions. These, however, were amicably settled by comparing notes; and when the accounts of that day’s examination appeared in the journals of the time, they were sufficiently consistent with each other; much more so, indeed, than with the truth in its severer aspects. There was no wish to mislead, probably; but the whole system has the capital defect of making a trade of news. The history of passing events comes to us sufficiently clouded and obscured by the most vulgar and least praiseworthy of all our lesser infirmities, even when left to take what may be termed its natural course; but, as soon as the money-getting principle is applied to it, facts become articles for the market, and go up and down, much as do other commodities, in the regular prices-current.

Mary Monson trembled a little when sworn; but she had evidently braced her nerves for the trial. Women are very capable of self-command, even in situations as foreign to their habits as this, if they have time to compose themselves, and to come forward under the influence of resolutions deliberately formed. Such was probably the state of mind of this solitary and seemingly unfriended young woman; for, though pale as death, she was apparently composed. We say unfriended—Mrs. Jones, herself, having given all her friends to understand that she had invited the stranger to her house under a sense of general duty, and not on account of any private or particular interest she felt in her affairs. She was as much a stranger to her, as to every one else in the village.

“Will you be so good as to tell us your name, place of ordinary residence, and usual occupation?” asked the coroner, in a dry, cold manner, though not until he had offered the witness a seat, in compliment to her sex.

If the face of Mary Monson was pale the instant before, it now flushed to scarlet. The tint that appears in the August evening sky, when heat-lightning illuminates the horizon, is scarce more bright than that which chased the previous pallid hue from her cheeks. Dunscomb understood her dilemma, and interposed. She was equally unwilling to tell her real name, and to give a false one, under the solemn responsibility of an oath. There is, probably, less of deliberate, calculated false-swearing, than of any other offence against justice; few having the nerve, or the moral obtuseness, that is necessary to perjury. We do not mean by this, that all which legal witnesses say is true, or the half of it; for ignorance, dull imaginations working out solutions of half-comprehended propositions, and the strong propensity we all feel to see things as we have expected to find them, in a measure disqualifies fully half of those on whom the law has devolved a most important duty, to discharge it with due intelligence and impartiality.

“As a member of the bar, I interfere in behalf of the witness,” said Dunscomb, rising. “She is evidently unacquainted with her true position here, and consequently with her rights. Jack, get a glass of water for the young lady;” and never did Jack obey a request of his uncle with greater alacrity. “A witness cannot, with propriety, be treated as a criminal, or one suspected, without being apprised that the law does not require of those thus circumstanced, answers affecting themselves.”

Dunscomb had listened more to his feelings than to his legal knowledge, in offering this objection, inasmuch as no very searching question had, as yet, been put to Mary Monson. This the coroner saw, and he did not fail to let it be understood that he was aware of the weakness of the objection.