He only answered by shaking his head slowly, and repeating, as if to himself, “Poor Mary! and so he was her son.”
Joseph came in, and the details of the dreadful scene were repeated and dwelt upon, as human beings are prone to dwell on all that excites strong emotion. To him the name of Mary Williams conjured up no smiling visions of juvenile love; and he strove to fortify his father’s relenting feelings, by placing in a strong light all the arguments in favour of the prisoner’s guilt. The juryman was glad to be thus fortified, and replied in a firm, reassured voice, “At all events, I did my duty.” Yet, for months after, the pale young face looked at him despairingly from the evening air, and came between him and the sunshine. But time, which softens all things, drifted the dreary spectre into dim distance; and Mr. Barker’s faculties were again completely absorbed in making money for his son.
Joseph was called a fine, promising young man; but his conduct was not altogether satisfactory to his parents. He was fond of dress and company, and his impetuous temperament not unfrequently involved him in quarrels. On two or three of these occasions, they feared he had been a little excited by drink. But he was, in reality, a good-hearted fellow, and, like his rough father, had undeveloped germs of deep tenderness within him. His father’s life was bound up within his; his mother loved him with all the energy of which her sluggish nature was capable; and notwithstanding the inequalities of his violent and capricious temper, the neighbours loved him also.
What, then, was their consternation, when it was rumoured that on his twenty-fourth birth-day he had been arrested for murder! And, alas! it was too true that his passions had thus far over-mastered his reason. He wished to please a young girl in the vicinity; and she treated him coolly, because a rival had informed her that he was seen intoxicated, and in that state had spoken over-boldly of being sure of her love. He drank again, to drown his vexation; and while the excitement of the draught was on him, he met the man who informed against him. His exulting rival was injudicious enough to exclaim, “Ho! here you are, drunk again! What a promising fellow for a husband!” Unfortunately, an axe was at hand, and, in the double fury of drink and rage, he struck with it again and again. One hour after, he would have given all he ever hoped to possess, nay, he would gladly have died, could he have restored the life he had so wantonly destroyed.
Thus, Mr. Barker was again brought into a court of justice on an affair of life and death. How differently all questions connected with the subject presented themselves now! As he sat beside that darling son, the pride of his life, his only hope on earth, oh, how he longed for words of fire, to plead that his young existence might be spared for repentance and amendment! How well he remembered the juryman’s plea for youth and intoxication! and with what an agony of self-reproach he recalled his own hard answer! With intense anxiety he watched the countenance of the jury for some gleams of compassion; but ever and anon, a pale young face loomed up between him and them, and gazed at him with fixed despair. The vision of other years returned to haunt him; and Joseph, his best beloved, his only one, stood beside it, pale and handcuffed, as he had been. The voice that pronounced his son guilty sounded like an awful echo of his own; and he seemed to hear Mary Williams whisper, “And my son also was very young.”
That vigorous off-shoot from his own existence, so full of life and feeling, and, alas, of passion, which misguides us all—he must die! No earthly power can save him. May the All Merciful sustain that poor father, as he watches the heavy slumber of his only son in that dark prison; and while he clasps the cold hand, remembers so well the dimpled fingers he used to hold in his, when little Joe sat upon his knee and prattled childish love.
And the All Merciful was with him, and sent influences to sustain him through that terrible agony. It did not break his heart; it melted and subdued him. The congealed sympathies of his nature flowed under this ordeal of fire; and, for the first time, he had a realizing sense that every human being is, or has been, somebody’s little Joe.
“How kind you are to me!” said the prisoner, in answer to his soothing words and affectionate attentions.
He replied meekly, “Would I had always been so!” Then turning his face away, and earnestly pressing Joseph’s hand, he said, in an agitated voice, “Tell me truly, my son, does it ever occur to you, that I may have been to blame for this great misfortune that has befallen you?”
“You, dear father!” he exclaimed. “I do not understand what you mean.”