A private chivalry

Since obstinacy, like a hound that is beaten, is constrained to course the truer for the blows of the whipper-in, two days of confinement and the anxious expostulations of Forsyth and Antrim appeared to have no mellowing effect upon the man who stood charged with the murder of James Harding. So far from it, time and the friendly efforts of the allies seemed but to crystallize reticent impulse into a fixed purpose strong to defeat any helpful emprise on the part of his friends.

Failing to beat down the guard of reticence in any face-to-face encounter, Forsyth had not been above bribing the turnkey to spy upon his prisoner; but if the man’s report was to be believed, the bribe was money wasted. Brant spent the time in reading, was calm and cheerful, and cared not to know what the newspapers were saying about him. A model prisoner in every respect, and a man whom he (the turnkey) would be sorry to see hanged.

So ran the purchased report, and to all outward appearances the morning of the third day of his confinement found the prisoner in the same equable frame of mind. But if he fancied he had fortified the gate of silence until it was proof against the batterings of friendship, he had left unguarded a postern opening upon the innermost citadel of whatsoever resolution he was defending. By this postern he was presently to be assaulted, as was apparent when the jailer unlocked the cell door to admit Judge Langford. None the less, he welcomed his visitor heartily, and with becoming warmth.

“Good morning, Judge Langford. This is kind of you. I hardly expected to see you here,” he said, doing the honours of his cramped quarters as best he might.

The judge stood his cane in a corner and sat down on the edge of the cot.

“That doesn’t speak well for your good opinion of me,” he rejoined genially. “At our last meeting—in your office, if you remember—I gave you to understand that you had placed me under obligations which I should gladly repay. Since then you have added somewhat to the score, and I am here to do what I may to square the account.”

Brant bowed. If he suspected what was coming he made no sign, choosing rather to let the judge find his own way to what was toward.

“After the examination, Saturday, I met your friend Forsyth—and, by the way, he is a good friend of yours, too. He tells me that you refuse to employ counsel, and that without giving any reason. Now we can not allow that, you know, and to make it impossible for you to persist, I have this morning taken out a license to practice in the Colorado courts for the express purpose of defending you.”

“Of what?” exclaimed the prisoner. It was a hopeful sign that the judge had beaten down the guard of self-possession that Brant sprang up and began to tramp, three steps and a turn.

“Of defending you, I said. And I am here now to beg you to speak freely to me as client to advocate.”

“But, my dear sir! it is impossible—utterly impossible! You don’t know what you have undertaken.”

“I think I do; and I am ready and willing to do my best for you. But to that end you must be candid with me.”

“I say you do not know,” Brant insisted, going back of the admonition and speaking to the assertion. “Let me ask you one question, Judge Langford: Have you remembered that, as my counsel, you would be obliged to cross-examine your own son?”

“I have.”

“Good God! And you would do it? Why—” The prisoner checked himself suddenly, as one on the verge of a precipice, faced about, and went on more calmly: “But you must know that I wouldn’t allow it. It is the height of generosity and unselfishness on your part to offer it, but I can not accept—indeed, I can not.”

“You must accept; it is my privilege to insist.”

“And mine to refuse, ungracious as it may seem. I can not give you my reasons, and you must not ask them. But I’ll say to you what I have not said to anybody else. If I should suffer you to do this thing which you propose you would never forgive me as long as you live!”

The judge met him firmly on his own ground. “That is only adding mystery to mystery. Be frank with me, Mr. Brant, at whatever cost to yourself, or to any one.”

There was no reply to this, and the judge pressed his advantage vigorously. “Let us put away all equivocation and seek only to understand each other,” he went on. “You have committed this crime”—the prisoner looked up quickly, and seemed to draw breath of relief—“you have committed this crime, and for some reason, real or fancied, you are determined to make no effort to save yourself. From a purely self-centred point of view this may seem right and proper; but you must remember that no man lives or dies to himself. You owe something to your friends; you owe something to me, since it was at least a part of your errand last Friday night to find my son and to send him home.”

“Then you know—” Brant began, but the judge went on quickly:

“I know that much, and no more. It is for you to tell me the rest.”

“I can’t do it, Judge Langford, and you must forgive me if I still insist that you do not know what you are asking of me. I appreciate your kindness more than I can tell, but I can not suffer it. I have sins enough to answer for, God knows, without adding another for which there would be no forgiveness in this world or the next.”

The judge shook his head slowly. “Your point of view grows more and more inexplicable, Mr. Brant. In what possible way could your confidence in me wrong any one?”

Brant leaned against the wall with folded arms, the gray eyes narrowing and the firm jaw settling itself in rigid lines.

“Perhaps the word was ill chosen. But if I should do as you ask, there would be sorrow and grief and misery where I would fain see happiness. And for myself there would be regrets deep and lifelong. You will say this is more mystery, but I can not help it. I know quite well what I am doing, and I have counted the cost to the last farthing. My life has been a sorry failure, Judge Langford—so poor a thing that I can afford to give it freely if the law shall demand it.”

The judge pursed his lips and made another step in the outworking of the problem of deduction.

“Am I to understand by this that free speech on your part would involve others besides yourself?” he asked.

“It would involve others—yes, many others.”

“Without making your defense less hopeless than it appears to be at present?”

“Without bringing me anything that I could endure with half the fortitude that I shall take to the gallows. No; your sympathy and loving-kindness are very comforting to me, but you must pardon me if I say that they are quite undeserved. Whatever the jury sees fit to give me will doubtless have been earned, and well earned.”

The judge saw that the time for winning his client’s confidence was not yet ripe, and he rose and buttoned his coat.

“You are still giving me riddles, Mr. Brant, and while you elect to do that, no one can help you intelligently. I am not going to press you further this morning, but I shall come again—and yet again. Meanwhile, I am ready and anxious to act for you the moment you will permit it. I can’t say more, can I?”

He held out his hand, and Brant’s grasp of it was not without emotion.

“No one could be kinder than you, Judge Langford; and some time, in this world or another, you shall know that I am not ungrateful.”

When the judge was fairly out of the cell and the sound of his footsteps had died away in the corridor, Brant threw himself upon the cot and groaned aloud. But his speech was of gratitude.

“Thank God, that trial is over! If they could devise many more such torments as that, I’d hang myself to the grating and have done with it!”

That evening, at nine o’clock, a fact leaked out which Forsyth hastened to telephone to the house in the Highlands: the Grand Jury had found a true bill against George Brant for the wilful murder of James Harding.