“It was the English,” Kasper cried,
“Who put the French to rout;
But what they killed each other for,
I could not well make out.
But everybody said,” quoth he,
“That ’twas a famous victory.”
Southey.
The following day, after an early breakfast, Dunscomb and his friend the doctor were on their way back to town. The former had clients and courts, and the latter patients, who were not to be neglected, to say nothing of the claims of Sarah and Mrs. Updyke. John and Michael remained at Biberry; the first being detained there by divers commissions connected with the comforts and treatment of Mary Monson, but still more by his own inclinations; and the last remaining, somewhat against his wishes, as a companion to the brother of her who so strongly drew him back to New York.
As the commitment was for offences so serious, crimes as grave as any known to the law, bail would not have been accepted, could any have been found. We ought not to speak with too much confidence, however, on this last point; for Dr. McBrain, a man of very handsome estate, the result of a liberal profession steadily and intelligently pursued, was more than half disposed to offer himself for one of the sureties, and to go and find a second among his friends. Nothing, indeed, prevented his doing so; but Dunscomb’s repeated assurances that no bondsmen would be received. Even charming young women, when they stand charged with murder and arson, must submit to be incarcerated, until their innocence is established in due form of law; or, what is the same thing in effect, until the caprice, impulses, ignorance, or corruption of a jury acquits them.
The friends did not entirely agree in their manner of viewing this affair. The doctor was firmly impressed with the conviction of Mary Monson’s innocence; while Dunscomb, more experienced in the ways of crime and the infirmities of the human heart, had his misgivings. So many grounds of suspicion had occurred, or been laid open to his observation, during the hour of private communication, that it was not easy for one who had seen so much of the worst side of human nature, to cast them off under the mere influence of a graceful form, winning manner, and bright countenance. Then, the secondary facts, well established, and, in one important particular, admitted by the party accused, were not of a character to be overlooked. It often happens, and Dunscomb well knew it, that innocence appears under a repulsive exterior, while guilt conceals itself in forms and aspects so fair, as to deceive all but the wary and experienced.