This was soon settled. The landlord of poor Stanhope, who occupied the lower stories, deposed, that being kept awake nearly all night, by a violent tooth-ache, he had heard some one descend the stairs after midnight, and, from the heavy step, supposed it to be Mr. Stanhope. Just before daylight he heard another person come down stairs, when his curiosity being excited, he arose and peeped through the bowed shutters. He saw Mrs. Stanhope standing at the front door, as if looking for some one. In a few minutes her husband returned. He thought even then that there was something wild in his tenant’s appearance; and his attention was particularly called to it by seeing Stanhope place, or rather fling, a small purse into his wife’s hands, exclaiming, “Here is money, we shall not starve, no matter how it was got,” or words to that effect. They then went up stairs, and he retired, wondering, to bed. As soon as he heard of the catastrophe of the night, he determined on acquainting the magistrate with his suspicions.
“It does seem, gentlemen,” said the justice, taking his spectacles from his eyes, and looking around at the astonished listeners, when the witness had concluded his testimony “as if the finger of God had pointed us directly to the perpetrator of this enormous felony and murder. James Stanhope was always a beggar, and no honest man need be so in this highly-favored country.”—The magistrate forgot that but a week before he had refused to engage his victim as a common day-laborer, because he said Stanhope’s late sickness had left him too weak to work with any profit to his employer.—“Let three or four of you get ready to accompany me, for the murderer may prove desperate. I’ll take my father’s pistols he wore at Princeton.”
Meanwhile, the coroner, having been sent for by express, had arrived and impanelled a jury, in the language of the law, “super visum corporis.” The murdered man was identified as a passenger, and his name, on searching his pockets, discovered to be Mr. Howard. A verdict, that the deceased came to his death by the hands of a person or persons unknown, was given in, and the jury adjourned. Could it be that the deceased was Ellen’s parent? Alas! subsequent investigations proved it to be too true, and the village was in a few days thunder-struck with the intelligence that Stanhope had murdered his own father-in-law. But we anticipate.
Meanwhile, the victim of these investigations, exhausted by his last night’s watching, was lying in his crazy garret, in a calm deep sleep. His wife sat beside him, leaning her head on her hands, and gazing into her husband’s face, as his features smiled in slumber; while now and then, as her little boy would steal up to her for a kiss or a caress, she would drop a tear of mingled happiness and love upon his face. Sweet, noble woman! As she looked upon that calm, chiselled face, and thought of all her husband had suffered for her sake, how her heart swelled with emotions of tenderness toward him. His pale, high brow was partly shaded by the dark locks which curled around it. On every line of its broad surface could be seen the traces of care. Ellen stooped and kissed it. At that moment the door was suddenly opened, and a crowd of men broke rudely into the apartment. The noise awakened the sleeper, and he started half up and gazed around him, while the frightened little fellow ran and clung to his mother’s side, peeping tremblingly at the strangers. Ellen sprang to her feet equally alarmed, gazing with an ashy cheek on the intruders.
“There he is—seize him, seize him,” said the magistrate.
Three of the officers rushed forward, but Ellen instinctively interposed between them and her husband. One of the men attempted to thrust her aside. Quick as lightning the indignant husband felled the wretch to the floor.
“He resists the law,” shouted the magistrate, “down with him—shoot him if he don’t instantly surrender.”
“The law!—what authority have you produced for this insulting entrance on my privacy?” said Stanhope, placing himself before his wife and child, and frowning sternly on the intruders.
“I have authority,” said the magistrate, advancing, “you are my prisoner!”
“Your prisoner!—for what?” said the astonished husband.