Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885

by Various

Miss Celandine also swore to her mother's agonies, and described the condition to which the household had been brought by Mrs. Stiles's accident.

Then Mrs. Tarbell bowed to the judge, and said, "That is my case, your honor."

"And a very good case, too," she thought, as she sat down.

Pope's cross-examination had effected nothing, and the judge was against him. Alexander, with his thumbs in his waistcoat, looked entirely satisfied; Judge Measy, fanning himself and gasping under the heat, appeared to be anxious for Mr. Pope to get through his flimsy defence as quickly as possible.

Mr. Pope rose, flung back his hair, paused a moment, and then began. He thanked his learned opponent for kindly putting the jury on the track of a suggestion which he himself might have been delicate about making to them. He would have been unwilling to dwell upon the—hem—peculiar status of his opponent; but she herself had seen fit to take it for granted that he intended to advance a certain class of arguments, and he consequently considered it only fair to her to do so. He should not, however, call them arguments: they were rather considerations which would serve to explain the arguments which Mrs. Tarbell herself had used. "My learned opponent," said Mr. Pope, "told you that you mustn't think of her client as a woman who comes here and asks for your sympathy; you mustn't, she says, suppose that there is any feminine weakness or resentment about Mrs. Stiles, nor, for a stronger reason,—such is the unexpressed conclusion,—is there any feminine weakness about Mrs. Stiles's eloquent counsel. Well, gentlemen, if Mrs. Stiles is not a woman, what is she? Is she a white elephant? Is she a female suffragist? which, I have heard, is neither man nor woman." (Immense laughter in court, indignation in the cheeks of Mrs. Tarbell, a lofty and contemptuous frown on the forehead of Mrs. Pegley.) "Gentlemen, with the greatest possible respect for Mrs. Stiles, whose painful sufferings I greatly deplore, and to whom I wish to tender my entire sympathies; with, too, the greatest respect for my friend Mrs. Tarbell, in admiration for whose talents and determination I yield to nobody, I feel it my duty to say to you that this accident having happened through the negligence, excusable perhaps, but still the negligence,—carelessness, haste, if you will,—of Mrs. Stiles,—and that this was the case I shall show you in a moment,—Mrs. Stiles and her counsel, neither of them being for a single instant anything but a woman, took the—what shall I say?—the romantic view of the matter immediately. Romance, gentlemen, breathes its tender and refining influence about the domestic fireside, chastens and sanctifies the atmosphere of home, leads us, we all know, gentlemen, to holier and purer views of life, and nerves us for the bitter struggle of the world. But romance outside of the home-circle cuts but a sorry figure; it is very dangerous for it to stray out of doors into the rough arena of life,—into the street, gentlemen,—where there are street-cars. We must look at the evils of life from the strictly legal point of view when they come into court, gentlemen; and when his honor shall have laid down to you the doctrine of contributory negligence, the bearings of which on this case you have already thought of, I don't doubt,—when you come to apply that rule to this case, you will make short work, I am afraid, of romance."

Mr. Pope then proceeded to say that the case was in a nutshell. The plaintiff had called a car; the driver of the car had pulled up his horses; it was a wet day, the wheels would not stop quickly, and Mrs. Stiles was in a hurry to get on; she tried to board the car while it was in motion, and was thrown off. Was there any law to make a railway company responsible for such accidents as this? or any railway company that would not go out of business immediately if it were to be held so responsible?

Then Mr. Pope called his witnesses. He was a very short time examining them; he bit his lips when he heard their answers. Mrs. Tarbell's cross-examination was also short. Alexander whispered to her to cut it short,—that the testimony was almost an admission of her case by itself. But to Mrs. Stiles all these things were terribly significant of victory for Mr. Pope; and the very fact that Mrs. Tarbell offered no rebutting testimony was somehow twisted into another evidence of approaching disaster by her poor stupid old mind. She hardly heard a word of Mrs. Tarbell's speech to the jury. She was looking forward in agony to what Mr. Pope would say. For she knew he was right. She knew that Mrs. Tarbell had been carried away by her sympathies; she was sure of it. Oh, why had she not gone to a gentleman lawyer? He would have advised her not to bring suit; at least he would have allowed her to accept that compromise. She was all alone. Celandine and Mr. Mecutchen had gone away somewhere,—gone to get some ice-cream: they would be back. Should she go and fling herself at Mr. Pope's feet and confess everything?

When Mrs. Tarbell sat down there was a hum of applause, and the judge stopped waving his fan for a moment to give Mrs. Tarbell a scarcely-perceptible nod of approval.

"If I know anything, it'll be a two-thousand-dollar werdick," mumbled one of the tipstaves.

Then Mr. Pope got on his legs. He passed his hand over his face, and there was a countenance for you!—luminous, inspired, magical; a face one moment like to a running brook for poetry and liquid sentiment, the lines and wrinkles on it shifting about and rippling sweetly down into his chin, where they cascaded off, so to speak; the next moment like a mighty and rugged rock, a stronghold of security and protection, on which he presently smote, Moses-like, and the brook of which I spoke gushed out again.