Brand Whitlock - The Turn of the Balance

Again McWhorter nodded decisively, and then, feeling that much was due to a man of Ward's position, went on:

"The Court wishes to say that you, Mr. Ward," he gave one of his nods in that gentleman's direction, "have acted the part of a good citizen in this affair. You have done your duty, as every citizen should, painful as it was. The Court congratulates you."

And then, having thought again of the painfulness of this duty, McWhorter went on to tell how painful his own duty was; but he said it would not do to allow sympathy to obscure judgment in such cases. He talked at length on this theme, still unable to end, because he did not know what sort of guess to make. And then he began to discuss the evils of speculation, and when he saw that the reporters were scribbling desperately to put down all he was saying, he extended his remarks and delivered a long homily on speculation in certain of its forms, characterizing it as one of the worst and most prevalent vices of the day. After he had said all he could think of on this topic, he spoke to Graves again, and explained to him the advantages of being in the penitentiary, how by his behavior he might shorten his sentence by several months, and how much time he would have for reflection and for the formation of good resolutions. It seemed, indeed, before he had done, that it was almost a deprivation not to be able to go to a penitentiary. But finally he came to an end. Then he looked once more out of the window, once more twirled his eye-glasses on their cord, and then, turning about, came to the reserved climax of his long address.

"The sentence of the Court, Mr. Graves, is that you be confined in the penitentiary at hard labor for the term of one year, no part of said sentence to consist of solitary confinement, and that you pay the costs of this prosecution."

The boy sat down, held out his wrists for the handcuffs, the steel clicked, the pen scratched in the silence.

Danner got up, marshaled his prisoners, and they marched out. The eyes of every one in the court-room followed them, the eyes of Ward fixed on Graves. As he looked, he saw a woman sitting on the last one of the benches near the door. Her head was bowed on her hand, but as the procession passed she raised her face, all red and swollen with weeping, and, with a look of love and tenderness and despair, fixed her eyes on Graves. The boy did not look at her, but marched by, his head resolutely erect.

Ward returned to his office and to his work, but all that day, in the excitement on the floor of the exchange, during luncheon at the club, at his desk, in his carriage going home at evening, he saw before him that row of heads–the white poll of old Delaney, the woolly pate of the negro, but, more than all, the brown head of Harry Graves. And when he entered his home at evening the sadness of his reflections was still in his face.

"What's the matter this evening?" asked Elizabeth. "Nerves?"

"Yes."

"Been on the wrong side to-day?"

"Yes, decidedly, I fear," said Ward.

"What do you mean?"

"I've sent a boy to the penitentiary." Ward felt a kind of relief, the first he had felt all that day, in dealing thus bluntly, thus brutally, with himself. Elizabeth knit her brows, and her eyes winked rapidly in the puzzled expression that came to them.

"You remember Harry Graves?" asked her father.

"Oh, that young man?"

"Yes, that young man. Well, I've sent him to the penitentiary."

"What is that you say, Stephen?" asked Mrs. Ward, coming just then into the room. She had heard his words, but she wished to hear them again.

"I just said I'd sent Harry Graves to the penitentiary."

"For how long?" asked Mrs. Ward, with a judicial desire for all the facts, usually unnecessary in her judgments.

"For one year."

"Why, how easily he got off!" said Mrs. Ward. "And do hurry now, Stephen. You're late."

Elizabeth saw the pain her mother had been so unconscious of in her father's face, and she gave Ward a little pat on the shoulder.

"You dear old goose," she said, "to feel that way about it. Of course, you didn't send him–it was John Eades. That's his business."

But Ward shook his head, unconvinced.

"Doubtless it will be a good thing for the young man," said Mrs. Ward. "He has only himself to blame, anyway."

But still Ward shook his head, and his wife looked at him with an expression that showed her desire to help him out of his gloomy mood.

"You know you could have done nothing else than what you did do," she said. "Criminals must be punished; there is no way out of it. You're morbid–you shouldn't feel so."

But once more Ward gave that unconvinced shake of the head, and sighed.

"See here," said Elizabeth, with the sternness her father liked to have her employ with him, "you stop this right away." She shook him by the shoulder. "You make me feel as if I had done something wrong myself; you'll have us all feeling that we belong to the criminal classes ourselves."

"I've succeeded in making myself feel like a dog," Ward replied.

The county jail was in commotion. In the street outside a patrol wagon was backed against the curb. The sleek coats of its bay horses were moist with mist; and as the horses stamped fretfully in the slush, the driver, muffled in his policeman's overcoat, spoke to them, begging them to be patient, and each time looked back with a clouded face toward the outer door of the jail. This door, innocent enough with its bright oak panels and ground glass, was open. Inside, beyond the vestibule, beyond another oaken door, stood Danner. He was in black, evidently his dress for such occasions. He wore new, squeaking shoes, and his red face showed the powder a barber had put on it half an hour before. On his desk lay his overcoat, umbrella, and a small valise. The door of the glass case on the wall, wherein were displayed all kinds of handcuffs, nippers, squeezers, come-alongs and leather strait-jackets, together with an impressive exhibit of monstrous steel keys, was open, and several of its brass hooks were empty. Danner, as he stood in the middle of the room, looked about as if to assure himself that he had forgotten nothing, and then went to the window, drew out a revolver, broke it at the breach, and carefully inspected its loads. That done, he snapped the revolver together and slipped it into the holster that was slung to a belt about his waist. He did not button the coat that concealed this weapon. Then he looked through the window, saw the patrol wagon, took out his watch and shouted angrily:

"For God's sake, Hal, hurry up!"

Danner's impatient admonition seemed to be directed through the great barred door that opened off the other side of the office into the prison, and from within there came the prompt and propitiatory reply of the underling:

"All right, Jim, in a minute."

The open door, the evident preparation, the spirit of impending change, the welcome break in the monotony of the jail's diurnal routine, all were evidenced in the tumult that was going on beyond that huge gate of thick steel bars. The voice of the under-turnkey had risen above the din of other voices proceeding from the depths of hidden cells; there was a constant shuffle of feet on cement floors, the rattle of keys, the heavy tumbling of bolts, the clang and grating of steel as the shifting of a lever opened and closed simultaneously all the doors of an entire tier of cells. These noises seemed to excite the inmates, but presently above the discord arose human cries, a chorus of good-bys, followed in a moment by those messages that conventionally accompany all departures, though these were delivered in all the various shades of sarcasm and bitter irony.

"Good-by!"

"Remember us to the main screw!"

"Think of us when you get to the big house!"