_ CHAPTER XLVI. THE SOUL MAY GAIN STRENGTH IN A DREARY CELL
IT is Bulwer, the prince of modern novelists, who says: "There is in calumny a rank poison that, even when the character throws off the slander, the heart remains diseased beneath the effect." And this is the exact condition in which Maria finds herself. The knaves who have sought her ruin would seem to have triumphed; the ears of the charitable are closed to her; her judgment seems sealed. And yet when all is dark and still; when her companions sleep in undisturbed tranquillity; when her agitated feelings become calmed; when there seems speaking to her, through the hushed air of midnight, the voice of a merciful providence-her soul quickens, and she counsels her self-command, which has not yet deserted her. Woman's nature is indeed strung in delicate threads, but her power of endurance not unfrequently puts the sterner sex to the blush. "Slander has truly left my heart diseased, but I am innocent, and to-morrow, perhaps, my star will brighten. These dark struggles cannot last forever!" she muses, as her self-command strengthens, and gives her new hopes. Her betrothed may return to-morrow, and his generous nature will not refuse her an opportunity to assert her innocence.
And while she thus muses in the cell of the guard-house, the steamer in which Tom proceeds to Charleston is dashing through the waves, speeding on, like a thing of life, leaving a long train of phosphoric brine behind her. As might naturally have been expected, Tom learns from a fellow-passenger all that has befallen the old Antiquary. This filled his mind with gloomy forebodings concerning the fate of Maria. There was, too, something evasive in the manner of the man who conveyed to him this intelligence, and this excited his apprehensions, and prompted him to make further inquiries. His confidence in her faith animated and encouraged his heart. But when he remembered that the old man was, even when he left, in the clutches of Snivel and Keepum (men whose wealth and influence gave them power to crush the poor into the dust), an abyss, terrible and dark, opened to him, his whole nature seemed changed, and his emotions became turbulent. He again sought the passenger, and begging him to throw off all restraint, assured him that it would relieve his feelings to know what had become of Maria. The man hesitated for a few moments, then, with reluctant lips, disclosed to him that she had fallen a victim of necessity-more, that she was leading the life of an outcast. Tom listened attentively to the story, which lost nothing in the recital; then, with passions excited to frenzy, sought his state-room. At first it seemed like a sentence of eternal separation ringing through his burning brain. All the dark struggles of his life rose up before him, and seemed hastening him back into that stream of dissipation in which his mind had found relief when his mother forsook him. But no! something-he knew not what-whispered in his ear, "Do not reject her. Faith and hope remains to you; let truth be the judge." He stretched himself in his berth, but not to sleep.
On the following morning Maria, with the frail companions of her cell, is brought into court, and arraigned before His Honor, Judge Sleepyhorn, who, be it said to his credit, though terrible in his dealings with the harder sex, and whose love of hanging negroes is not to be outdone, is exceedingly lenient with female cases, as he is pleased to style them. Though her virtue is as chaste as the falling snow, Maria is compelled to suffer, for nearly an hour, the jeers and ribald insinuations of a coarse crowd, while the fact of her being in the guard-house is winged over the city by exultant scandal-mongers. Nevertheless, she remains calm and resolute. She sees the last struggle of an eventful life before her, and is resolved to meet it with womanly fortitude.
The Judge smiles, casts a glance over his assembly, and takes his seat, as Mr. Sergeant Stubble commences to read over the charges against the accused. "Business," says the Judge, "will proceed."
"Now, Judge!" speaks up one of the frail women, coming forward in a bold, off-hand manner to speak for her companions, "I don't exactly see what we have done so much out of the way. No ladies of our standing have been up here before. The law's comin' very nice all at once. There's a heap, as you know, Judge--"
"No, no, no! I know nothing about such places!" quickly interrupts the Judge, his face full of virtuous indignation, and his hands raised in horror.
"Then I may be pardoned for not wearing spectacles," resumes the woman, with a curtsy. Finding the judgment-seat becoming a little too warm for his nerves, the Judge very prudently dismisses the damsels, with an admonition to go and do better-in fine, to tighten their tongues as well as their morality.
With the aid of Mr. Sergeant Stubble, Maria is brought forward, pale and trembling, and struggling with the war of grief waging in her heart. Calmly she looks up at the Judge for a moment, then hangs down her head in silence. "There is a Judge above who knows the circumstances, gives me now His hand, and will judge me in the balance of truth and mercy, when my enemies are at my feet," flashes through her thoughts, and strengthens the inner nature. But her tongue has lost its power; her feelings unbend to the thought that she is in a criminal court, arraigned before a Judge. She has no answer to make to the Judge's questions, but gives way to her emotions, and breaks out into loud sobs. Several minutes, during which a sympathizing silence is manifest, pass, when she raises slowly her head, and makes an attempt to mutter a few words in her defence. But her voice chokes, and the words hang, inarticulate, upon her lips. She buries her face in her hands, and shakes her head, as if saying, "I have said all."
His Honor seems moved to mercy by the touching spectacle before him. He whispers in the ear of Mr. Sergeant Stubble, and that functionary brightens up, and with an attempt to be kind, says: "Pray, Miss McArthur--it's a duty we have to perform, you see--where is your father? the Judge says."
Ah! That question has touched the fountain-spring of all her troubles, and the waters come gushing forth, as if to engulph the last faint shadow of hope in darkness. Almost simultaneously she falls to the floor in a fit of violent hysterics. The Judge orders the court-room cleared of its spectators, and if the reader has ever witnessed the painful sight of a female suffering such paroxysms, he may picture more forcibly in his imagination than we can describe, the scene that follows. For some fifteen minutes the sufferer struggles, and when her mind resumes its calm, she casts a wild, despairing look round the room, then fixes her eyes upon those who are gathered about her.
There was a kind impulse yet left in the Judge. He discovers a sympathy for her condition, holds her weak, trembling hand in his own, and bathes her temples with cologne. "You are free to go home-there is no charge against you," he whispers in her ear. "I have ordered a carriage, and will send you to your home-where is it?" This is, indeed, cruel kindness.
"If I had a home," responds Maria, in a low voice, as she rises, and rests herself on her elbow, "it would shelter me from this distress. Yes, I would then be happy once more."
A carriage soon arrives, she is put into it, and with a few consoling words from the Judge, is driven back, as hastily as possible, to the house from which she was dragged only last night. She has nowhere else to go to-day, but resolves to-morrow to seek a shelter elsewhere. Through the whisperings of that unaccountable human telegraph, the news of her shame, made great and terrible with a thousand additions, is flown into the family secrets of the city. How strange and yet how true of human nature is it, that we stand ever ready to point the finger of scorn at those we fancy in the downward path, while refusing ourselves to receive the moralist's lessons. _