Paul Ralston

by Mary Jane Holmes

This was the arrangement, and when all was ready the jailer unlocked the door and Paul stepped out into the brightness and freshness of the morning, but before he had time to look about him he was met and nearly knocked down by Sherry. They had forgotten to shut him up and he had followed the carriage to the jail, where, while the judge and Mrs. Ralston were inside, he sniffed under the window and scratched upon the door with low whines of eagerness and delight as if he knew his master were there. The moment Paul appeared there was a roar of joy, and Sherry’s paws were on Paul’s shoulders and his shaggy head was lain first on one side of his neck and then on the other.

“Good Sherry, are you glad to see me?” Paul said, caressing the dog and with some difficulty removing his paws from his neck. “Get down, old fellow, get down, I’ve no time for you now.”

Sherry got down, but crouched at Paul’s feet, wagging his tail with short barks and occasionally leaping up again towards his face. Paul kept his hand upon him, while he inhaled the pure salt air in long breaths and looked about him as if the place were new. To his right was the sea, dotted with sails afar in the horizon,—nearer the shore a boat was coming as fast as steam could bring it, its lower deck black with passengers, who, afraid of being late, were crowding to the front in order to be among the first to land. To the south, over the roofs of other buildings, he could see the cupola of his father’s house, and he winked hard to keep back the tears choking him as he thought he might never enter that house again. He could not see Mrs. Percy’s cottage, nor Miss Hansford’s, but he knew where they were and his eyes wandered from one locality to the other and then went on to the Court House half a mile away and on the same wide street with the jail. He could see the people hurrying there before he entered the carriage and after he was in it and out of the jail yard he could see them more distinctly lining the way and reminding him of ants when their nest is disturbed. All turned their heads to look as the carriage drove by with Sherry in attendance trotting on the side where Paul was sitting and sometimes springing up to see that his master was there. Many lifted their hats, and the piping voice of a little child grasping its mother’s dress called out, “Mam-ma, which is him!”

Paul heard it and laughed. “It’s quite an ovation, isn’t it,” he said to his mother, who could not answer. It was dreadful to her, and she was glad when they reached the Court House and were for a little time alone in the anteroom to which Paul was taken. The Court House was a large one for the size of the town and comparatively new. Mr. Ralston’s money had helped to build it. Indeed, he had given more towards its erection than any one else, and now his son was to be tried in it. Every available seat was taken before the session opened. A great many people had left the Island,—some to avoid being subœnaed, others because business called them home, but their places had been filled and the hotels and boarding houses were doing a thriving business. They were empty this morning. The guests were all at the court house, waiting the appearance of the prisoner. Judge Ralston had taken his seat near where Paul would sit. Beside him was his wife, white and corpse-like. Miss Hansford sat not far away,—with fire in her eyes as they rested on the sea of heads there to look at Paul, and Elithe, who sat beside her, with a blue veil over her hat effectually hiding her face from the eyes bent upon her. There were many rumors in circulation concerning the young girl, who was nearly as much talked of as Paul. That Jack Percy had been in love with her and known to her as Mr. Pennington, until she saw him dying, everybody knew, while many believed that she had been engaged to him, for hadn’t the papers said so? That she was to be the principal witness against Paul was generally understood and great was the anxiety to see her.

“That’s she, with the blue veil, sitting by that cross-looking old woman,” was buzzed about, and many were the wishes expressed that she would remove her veil. She would have to do it when called to the stand, and with that reflection the crowd consoled themselves and waited for Paul, who would not be veiled.

He came at last, walking unsteadily to his seat, with that stoop in his shoulders which had come upon him in prison. He was very pale and thin, with dark rings around his eyes, which for a few minutes he kept upon the floor as if he could not meet the hundreds of eyes watching him and compelling him at last to look up. He had tried to prepare himself for it, and thought he had done so, but, at the sight of so many people,—friends, acquaintances and strangers,—some in the rear of the house, with opera glasses, as if at a play, he felt his strength leaving him, and was more dead than alive when told to stand up and asked if he were guilty. Stumbling to his feet, he answered, “Not guilty,” the words ringing through the room and seeming to come back to him from every corner and every face in front of him. He was very much alive now. The numb feeling which had come over him at first was gone, and it seemed to him his head must burst with the pressure on it. He thought of the band of which Elithe had written and fancied there was a similar one across his forehead and the back of his head,—burning, boring, blinding, and making him lift his hand to loosen it, if possible, or take it away. Just where it pressed so hard was torture. Below it everything was clear, and, without apparent effort, he knew where his father sat, with his mother beside him, her face turned toward him with ineffable love and pity. She believed him wholly innocent,—so did his father, so did Tom, these three and no more. All the rest believed it accidental shooting, and that he was telling lies. This thought hardened him for a moment, and the glance with which he swept the house had in it something like reproach and a sense of injustice. This, however, changed as he met only looks of pity and sympathy, with here and there smiles of recognition. He saw Miss Hansford and Elithe and was glad the latter was veiled, feeling instinctively that, next to himself, she was the one most looked at. He was glad Clarice was not there, but up to the last minute he had hoped she would send him some word of comfort on this day which was to try his soul. But she had not. “She does not care as I thought she would, and she was to have been my wife,” kept repeating itself over and over in his mind during the preliminaries of the trial, which were rather long and tiresome.

There was not much heart in the prosecution, and the opening of the prosecuting attorney showed it. He told what he expected to prove, but indulged in no bursts of eloquence or sarcasm such as frequently mark the openings of similar trials. The jury, drawn with great difficulty, listened rather apathetically, and the audience impatiently, and Paul scarcely at all at first. He was looking at Elithe, trying to get a glimpse of her face, thinking again of the band around her head and wondering if it were as wide and hot as the one round his, benumbing him so that, for a second time, he did not realize where he was or why he was there, until Sherry came rushing in.

Generally, he staid quietly with the horses, and he had kept near them now for a while. Then, as if scenting danger to his master, he went to the Court House, pushed his way into the room, looked around for an instant until he saw Paul. With a bound, he was at his side, uttering cries more like human sounds than those of a canine, as he again put his paws on Paul’s shoulders and looked in his face. There was a stir among the people, which Sherry evidently did not like, for he turned his head from side to side in a threatening kind of way.

“Somebody remove that dog,” the judge said, sternly,—a command more easily given than obeyed.

Sherry refused to be removed and growled savagely at the attendant who tried to get him out. He took his paws from Paul’s neck, and, stretching himself at full length upon the floor, looked as if he meant to stay there.