THE DAY OF TRIAL—ANXIETY—THE VOLUNTEER COUNSEL—VERDICT OF THE JURY.

The day of my trial dawned as fair and bright as any that ever broke over the sinful world. It rose upon my slumber mildly, and without breaking its serenity. I slept better on the night preceding the trial, than I had done since my incarceration.

I knew that I was friendless and alone, and on the eve of a trial wherein I stood accused of a fearful crime; that I was defenceless; yet I rested my cause with Him, who has bidden the weary and heavy-laden to come unto Him, and He will give them rest. Strong in this consciousness, I sank to the sweetest slumber and the rosiest dreams. Through my mind gracefully flitted the phantom of Henry.

When Fanny woke me to receive my unrelished breakfast, she said:

"You've forgot that this is the day of trial; you sleep as unconsarned as though the trial was three weeks off. For my part, now that the baby is dead, I don't kere much what becomes of me."

"My cause," I replied, "is with God. To His keeping I have confided myself; therefore, I can sleep soundly."

"Have you got any lawyer?"

"No; I am a slave, and my master will not employ one."

After a few hours we heard the sound of a bell, that announced the opening of court. The jailer conducted me out of the jail yard into the Court House. It was the first time I had ever seen the interior of a court-room, when the court was in full session, and I was not very much edified by the sight.

The outside of the building was very tasteful and elegant, with most ornate decorations; but the interior was shocking. In the first place it was unfinished, and the bald, unplastered walls struck me as being exceedingly comfortless. Then the long, redundant cobwebs were gathered in festoons from rafter to rafter, whilst the floor was fairly tesselated with spots of tobacco-juice, which had been most dexterously ejected from certain legal orifices, commonly known as the mouths of lawyers, who, for want of opportunity to speak, resorted to chewing.

The judge, a lazy-looking old gentleman, sat in a time-worn arm-chair, ready to give his decision in the case of the Commonwealth versus Ann, slave of William Summerville; and seeming to me very much as though his opinion was made up without a hearing.

And there, ranged round his Honor, were the practitioners and members of the bar, all of them in seedy clothes, unshorn and unshaven. Here and there you would find a veteran of the bar, who claimed it as his especial privilege to outrage the King's or the President's English and common decency; and, as a matter of course, all the younger ones were aiming to imitate him; but, as it was impossible to do that in ability, they succeeded, to admiration, in copying his ill-manners.

Two of them I particularly noticed, as I sat in the prisoner's dock, awaiting the "coming up of my case." One of them the Court frequently addressed as Mr. Spear, and a very pointless spear he seemed;—a little, short, chunky man, with yellow, stiff, bristling hair, that stood out very straight, as if to declare its independence of the brain, and away it went on its owner's well-defined principle of "going it on your own hook." He had a little snub of a nose that possessed the good taste to turn away in disgust from its neighbor, a tobacco-stained mouth of no particular dimensions, and, I should judge from the sneer of the said nose, of no very pleasant odor; little, hard, flinty, grizzly-gray eyes, that seemed to wink as though they were afraid of seeing the truth. Altogether, it was the most disagreeably-comic phiz that I remember ever to have seen. To complete the ludicrous picture, he was a self-sufficient body, quite elate at the idea of speaking "in public on the stage." His speech was made up of the frequent repetition of "my client claims" so and so, and "may it please your Honor," and "I'll call the attention of the Court to the fact," and such like phrases, but whether his client was guilty of the charge set forth in the indictment, he neither proved nor disproved.

The other individual whom I remarked, was a great, fat, flabby man, whose flesh (like that of a rhinoceros) hung loosely on the bones. He seemed to consider personal ease, rather than taste, in the arrangement of his toilet; for he appeared in the presence of the court in a pair of half-worn slippers, stockings "down-gyved," a shirt-bosom much spotted with tobacco-juice, and a neck-cloth loosely adjusted about his red, beefish throat. His little watery blue eye reminded me forcibly of skimmed milk; whilst his big nose, as red as a peony, told the story that he was no advocate of the Maine liquor law, and that he had "voted for license."

He was said, by some of the bystanders, to have made an excellent speech adverse to his client, and in favor of the side against which he was employed.

"Hurrah for litigation," said an animadverter who stood in proximity to me. After awhile, and in due course of docket, my case came up.

"Has she no counsel?" asked the judge.

After a moment's pause, some one answered, "No; she has none."

I felt a chill gathering at my heart, for there was a slight movement in the crowd; and, upon looking round, I discovered Mr. Trueman making his way through the audience. After a few words with several members of the bar and the judge, he was duly sworn in, and introduced to the Court as Mr. Trueman, a lawyer from Massachusetts, who desired to be admitted as a practitioner at this bar. Thus duly qualified, he volunteered his services in my defence. The look which I gave him came directly from my overflowing heart, and I am sure spoke my thanks more effectual than words could have done. But he gave me no other recognition than a faint smile.

As the case began, my attention was arrested. The jury was selected without difficulty; for, as none of the panel had heard of the case, the counsel waived the privilege of challenging. After the reading of the indictment, setting forth formally "an assault upon Mr. Monkton, with intent to kill, by one Ann, slave of William Summerville," the Commonwealth's attorney introduced Mr. Monkton himself as the only witness in the case.

In a very minute and evidently pre-arranged story, he proceeded to detail the circumstances of a violent and deadly assault, which seemed to impress the jury greatly to my prejudice. When he had concluded, the prosecutor remarked that he had no further evidence, and proposed to submit the case, without argument, to the jury, as Mr. Trueman had no witnesses in my favor. To this proposal, however, Mr. Trueman would not accede; and so the prosecutor briefly argued upon the testimony and the law applicable to it. Then Mr. Trueman rose, and a thrill seemed to run through the audience as his tall, commanding form stood proud and erect, his mild saint-like eyes glowing with a fire that I had never seen before. He began by endeavoring to disabuse the minds of the jury of the very natural ill-feeling they might entertain against a slave, supposed to have made an attack upon the life of a white man; reviewed at length the distinctions which are believed, at the South, to exist between the two races; and dwelt especially upon those oppressive enactments which virtually place the life of a slave at the mercy of even the basest of the white complexion. Passing from these general observations, he examined, with scrutiny the prepared story of Mr. Monkton, showing it to be a vile fabrication of defeated malice, flatly contradictory in essential particulars, and utterly unworthy of reliance under the wise maxim of the law, that "being false in one thing, it was false in all." In conclusion, he made a stirring appeal to the jury, exhorting them to rescue this feeble woman from the foul machinations which had been invented for her ruin; to rebuke, by their righteous verdict, this swift and perjured witness; and to vindicate before the world the honor of their dear old Commonwealth, which was no less threatened by this ignominious proceeding than the safety of his poor and innocent client.

The officers of the Court could scarcely repress the applause which succeeded this appeal.

"Finally, gentlemen," resumed Mr. Trueman, "permit me to take back to my Northern home the warm, personal testimony to your love of justice, which, unbiased by considerations of color, is dealt out to high and low, rich and poor, white and black, with equal and impartial hands. Disarm, by your verdict in this instance, the reproach by which Kentucky may hereafter be assailed when her enemies shall taunt her with injustice and cruelty. It has long been said, at the North, that 'the South cannot show justice to a slave.' Now, gentlemen, 'tis for you, in the character of sworn jurors, to disprove, by your verdict, this oft-repeated, and, alas! in too many instances, well-authenticated charge. And I conjure you as men, as Christians, as jurors, to deal justly, kindly, humanely with this poor uncared-for slave-woman. As you are men and fathers, slave-holders even, show her justice, and, if need be, mercy, as in like circumstances you would have these dispensed to your own daughters or slaves. She is a woman, it may be an uncultured one; this place, this Court, is strange to her. There she sits alone, and seemingly friendless, in the dock. Where was her master? Had he prepared or engaged an advocate? No, sir; he left her helpless and undefended; but that God, alike the God of the Jew and the Gentile, has, in the hour of her need, raised up for her a friend and advocate. And be ye, Gentlemen of the Jury, also the friend of the neglected female! By all the artlessness of her sex, she appeals to you to rescue her name from this undeserved aspersion, and her body from the tortures of the lash or the halter. Mark, with your strongest reprobation, that lying accuser of the powerless, who, thwarted in the attempt to violate one article in the Decalogue, has here, and in your presence, accomplished the outrage of another, invoking upon his soul, with unholy lips, the maledictions with which God will sooner or later overwhelm the perjurer. Look at him now as he cowers beneath my words. His blanched cheek and shrivelling eye denote the detected villain. He dares not, like an honest, truth-telling man, face the charges arrayed against him. No, conscious guilt and wicked passion are bowing him now to the earth. Dare he look me full in the eye? No; for he fears lest I, with a lawyer's skill, should draw out and expose the malicious fiend that has urged him on to the persecution of the innocent and defenceless. Send him from your midst with the brand of severest condemnation, as an example of the fate which awaits a false witness in the Courts of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Restore to this prisoner the peace of mind which has been destroyed by this prosecution. Thus you will provide for yourselves a source of consolation through all the future, and I shall thank heaven with my latest breath for the chance that threw me, a stranger, in your city to-day, and led me to this temple of justice to urge your minds to the right conclusion."

He sat down amid such thunders of applause as incurred the censure of the judge. When order was restored, the Commonwealth's attorney rose to close the case. He said "he could see no reason for doubting the veracity of his witness whom the opposition had so strenuously endeavored to impeach. For his own part, he had long known Mr. Monkton, and had always regarded him as a man of truth. The present was the first attempt at his impeachment that he had ever heard of; and he felt perfectly satisfied that Mr. Monkton would survive it. Had he been the character which his adversary had described, it might have been possible to find some witness who could invalidate his testimony. No one, however, has appeared; and I take it that no one exists. The gentleman would do well to observe a little more caution before he attacks so recklessly the reputation of a man."

Mr. Trueman rising, requested the prosecutor to indulge him for one moment.

"Certainly," was the reply.

"I desire the jury and the Court to remember," said Mr. Trueman, "that I made no attack upon the reputation of the witness in this case. Doubtless that is all which it is claimed to be. I freely concede it; but the earnest prosecutor must permit me to distinguish between reputation and character. I did assail the character of the man, but not hypothetically or by shrewd conjectures; 'out of his own mouth I condemned him.' This is not the first instance of crime committed by a man, who, up to the period of transgression, stood fair before the world. The gentleman's own library will supply abundant proofs of the success of strong temptation in its encounters with even established virtue; and I care not if this willing witness could bolster up his reputation with the voluntary affidavits of hosts of friends; his own testimony, to-day, would have still produced and riveted the conviction of his really base character. I thank the gentleman for his indulgence."

The prosecutor continuing, endeavored to show that the testimony was, upon its face, entirely credible, and ought to have its weight with the jury. He labored hard to reconcile its many and material contradictions, reiterated his own opinion of the witness as a man of truth; and, with an inflammatory warning against the Abolition counsel, who, he said, was perhaps now "meditating in our midst some sinister design against the peculiar institution of the South," he ended his fiery harangue.

When he had taken his seat, Mr. Trueman addressed the Court as follows:

"Before the jury retire, may it please your Honor, as the case is of a serious nature, and as we have no witness for the defence, I would ask permission merely to repeat the version of the circumstances of this case detailed to me by the prisoner at the bar. Such a statement, I am aware, is not legal evidence; but if, in your clemency, you would permit it to go to the jury simply for what it is worth, the course of justice I am sure would by no means be impeded."

The judge readily consented to this request, and Mr. Trueman rehearsed my story, as narrated in the foregoing pages.

The Commonwealth's attorney then rejoined with a few remarks.

After a retirement of a few minutes, the jury returned with a verdict of "guilty as charged in the indictment," ordering me to receive two hundred lashes on my bare back, not exceeding fifty at a time. I was then remanded to jail to await the execution of my sentence.

Very gloomy looked that little room to me when I returned to it, with a horrid crime of which, Heaven knows, I was guiltless, affixed to my name, and the prospect of a cruel punishment awaiting me. Who may tell the silent, unexpressed agony that I there endured? Certain I am, that the nightly stars and the old pale moon looked not down upon a more wretched heart. There I sat, looking ever and again at the stolid Fanny, who had been sentenced to the work-house for a limited time. Since the death of her infant she had lost all her loquacity, and remained in a kind of dreamy, drowsy state, between waking and sleeping.

Through how many scenes of vanished days, worked the plough-share of memory, upturning the fresh earth, where lay the buried seeds of some few joys! And, sometimes, a sly, nestling thought of Henry hid itself away in the most covert folds of my heart. His melancholy bronze face had cut itself like a fine cameo, on my soul. The old, withered flowers, which he had sent, lay carefully concealed in a corner of the cell. Their beauty had departed like a dim dream; but a little of their fragrance still remained despite decay.

One day, after the trial, I was much honored and delighted by a visit from no less a personage than Mr. Trueman himself.

I was overcome, and had not power to speak the thanks with which my grateful heart ran over. He kindly pitied my embarrassment, and relieved me by saying,

"Oh, I know you are thankful to me. I only wish, my good girl, that my speech had rescued you from the punishment you have to suffer. Believe me, I deeply pity you; and, if money could avert the penalty which I know you have not merited, I would relieve you from its infliction; but nothing more can be done for you. You must bear your trouble bravely."

"Oh, my kind, noble friend!" I passionately exclaimed, "words like these would arm me with strength to brave a punishment ten times more severe than the one that awaits me. Sympathy from you can repay me for any suffering. That a noble white gentleman, of distinguished talents, should stoop from his lofty position to espouse the cause of a poor mulatto, is to me as pleasing as it is strange."

"Alas, my good girl, you and all of your wronged and injured race are objects of interest and affection to me. I would that I could give you something more available than sympathy: but these Southerners are a knotty people; their prejudices of caste and color grow out, unsightly and disgusting, like the rude excrescences upon a noble tree, eating it away, and sucking up its vital sap. These Western people are of a noble nature, were it not for their sectional blemishes. I never relied upon the many statements which I have heard at the North, taking them as natural exaggerations; but my sojourn here has proved them to be true."

I then told him of the discussion that I had overheard between him and Mr. Winston.

"Did you hear that?" he asked with a smile. "Winston has been very cool toward me ever since; yet he is a man with some fine points of character, and considerable mental cultivation. This one Southern feeling, or rather prejudice, however, has well-nigh corrupted him. He is too fiery and irritable to argue; but all Southerners are so. They cannot allow themselves to discuss these matters. Witness, for instance, the conduct of their Congressional debaters. Do they reason? Whenever a matter is reduced to argumentation, the Southerner flies off at a tangent, resents everything as personal, descends to abuse, and thus closes the debate."

I ventured to ask him some questions in relation to Fred Douglas; to all of which he returned satisfactory answers. He informed me that Douglas had once been a slave; that he was now a man of social position; of very decided talent and energy. "I know of no man," continued Mr. Trueman, "who is more deserving of public trust than Douglas. He conducts himself with extreme modesty and propriety, and a quiet dignity that inclines the most fastidious in his favor."

He then cited the case of Miss Greenfield (the black swan), showing that my race was susceptible of cultivation and refinement in a high degree.

Thus inspired, I poured forth my full soul to him. I told him how, in secret, I had studied; how diligently I had searched after knowledge; how I longed for the opportunity to improve my poor talents. I spoke freely, and with a degree of nervous enthusiasm that seemed to affect him.

"Ann," he said, and large tears stood in his eyes, "it is a shame for you to be kept in bondage. A proud, aspiring soul like yours, if once free to follow its impulses, might achieve much. Can you not labor to buy yourself? At odd times do extra work, and, by your savings, you may, in the course of years, be enabled to buy yourself."

"My dear sir, I've no 'odd times' for extra work, or I would gladly avail myself of them. Lazy I am not; but my mistress requires all my time and labor. If she were to discover that I was working, even at night for myself, she would punish me severely."

I said this in a mournful tone; for I felt that despair was my portion. He was silent for awhile; then said,

"Well, you must do the best you can. I would that I could advise you; but now I must leave. A longer stay would excite suspicion. You heard what they said the other day about Abolitionists."

I remembered it well, and was distressed to think that he had been abused on my account.

With many kind words he took his leave, and I felt as if the sunshine had suddenly been extinguished.

During his entire visit poor Fanny had slept. She lay like one in an opium trance. For hours after his departure she remained so, and much time was left me for reflection.