The Man in Gray: A Romance of North and South Part 63

Cook had been recognized by a neighbor as he drove Colonel Was.h.i.+ngton's wagon across the Maryland bridge at dawn. A committee of citizens came to cross-examine her.

She faced them with blanched cheeks.

"My husband, an Abolitionist!" she gasped.

"He's with those murderers and robbers."

She turned on the men like a young tigress.

"You're lying--I tell you!"

For an hour they tried to drag from her a confession of his plans. They left at last convinced that she knew nothing, that she suspected nothing of his real life. She had fought them bravely to the last. In her soul of souls she knew the hideous truth. She recalled the strange yearning with which he had looked at her as he left Sunday morning. She saw the bottom of the gulf at last.

With a cry of anguish and despair she sank to the floor in a faint.

She stirred with one thought tearing at her heart. Had they killed or captured him? She rose, dressed and joined the crowd that surged through the streets. The Rifle Works had been captured, Kagi was dead, the other two wounded, one fatally, the other a prisoner. No trace of her husband had been found. He had not reentered the town from the Maryland side.

She walked to the bridge and found it guarded by armed citizens. Tears of joy filled her eyes.

"He can't get back now!" she breathed.

She hurried to her room, fell on her knees and prayed:

"Oh, dear Lord Jesus, I've tried to be a good and faithful wife. My man has loved me tenderly and truly. Save him, oh, Lord! Don't let him come back now into this den of howling beasts. They'll tear him to pieces.

And I can't endure it. I can't. I can't. Have pity, Lord. I'm just a poor, heart-broken wife!"

Through six days of terror and excitement, of surging crowds and marching soldiers, the s.h.i.+vering figure watched through her window--and silently prayed. A guard had been set at her house to catch her husband if he dared to return. She laughed softly.

He would not return! She had asked G.o.d not to let him. She was asking him now with every breath she breathed. G.o.d would not forget her. He would answer her prayers. She knew it. G.o.d is love.

She had begun to sleep again at night. Her man was safe in the mountains of Pennsylvania. The Governor of Virginia had set a price on his head.

Men were scouring the hills hunting, as they hunt wild beasts, but G.o.d would save him. She had seen His s.h.i.+ning face in prayer and He had promised.

And then the blow fell.

Far down the street she caught the roar of a mob. Its cries came faintly at first and then they grew to fierce oaths and brutal shouts.

A man stopped in front of her house and spoke to the guard.

"They've got him!"

"Who?"

"Cook!"

"The d.a.m.ned beast, the spy, the traitor!"

"Where are they takin' him?"

"To the jail at Charlestown."

She had no time to lose. She must see him. Bareheaded she rushed into the street and fought her way to his side. His hands were manacled but his fair head was held erect until he saw the white face of his bride.

And then his eyes fell.

Would she, too, turn and curse him?

He asked himself the hideous question once and dared not lift his head.

He felt her coming nearer. The guard halted. His eyes were blurred. He could see nothing.

He only felt two soft arms slip round his neck. His own moved instinctively to clasp her but the manacles held them. She kissed his lips before the staring crowd and murmured inarticulate sounds of love and tenderness. She smoothed his blond hair back from his forehead and crooned over him as a mother over a babe.

"My little wife--my poor little girlie--my baby!" he murmured. "Forgive me--I tried to save you from this. But I couldn't. Love would have it so. Now you can forget me!"

The arms tightened about his neck, and gave the answer lips could not frame.

When his trial came she moved to Charlestown to sit by his side in the prison dock, touch his manacled hands and look into his eyes.

The trial moved to its certain end with remorseless certainty. Cook's sister, the wife of Governor Willard, sat beside her doomed brother, and cheered the desolate heart of the girl he had married. Governor Willard gave the full weight of his position and his sterling manhood to his wife in her grief.

He had employed the best lawyer in his state to defend Cook--Daniel W.

Vorhees, whose eloquence had given him the t.i.tle of "The Tall Sycamore of the Wabash."

When the great advocate rose, his towering figure commanded a painful silence in the crowded court room. The people, who packed every inch of its s.p.a.ce, hated the man who had lived among them for more than a year as a spy. But he had a wife, he had a sister. And in this solemn hour he should have his day in court. The crowd listened to Vorhees' speech with rapt attention.

His appeal was not based on the letter of the law. He took broader, higher grounds. He sketched the dark days of blood-cursed Kansas. He saw a handsome prodigal son, lured by the spirit of adventure, drawn into its vortex of blind pa.s.sions. He pictured the sinister figure of the grim Puritan leader condemned to death. He told of the spell this evil mind had thrown over a sensitive boy's soul. He pleaded for mercy and forgiveness, for charity and divine love. He pictured the little Virginia girl at his side drawn into the tragedy by a deathless love. He sketched in words that burned into the souls of his hearers the love of his sister, a love big and tender and strong, a love that had followed him in the far frontiers with prayers, a love that encircled him in the darkness of deeds of violence against the forms of law and order. He pleaded for her and the distinguished Governor of a great state, not because of their high position in life but because they had hearts that could ache and break.

When he had finished his remarkable speech, strong men who hated Cook were sobbing. The room was bathed in tears. The stern visaged judge made no effort to hide his.

The court charged the jury to do impartial justice under the laws of the commonwealth.

There could be but one verdict. It was solemnly given by the foreman and the judge p.r.o.nounced the sentence of death.

Two soft arms stole around the doomed man's neck, and then, before the court, crowd and G.o.d as witnesses, the little wife tenderly cried:

"My lover--my sweetheart--my husband--through evil report and through good report, through life, through death, through all eternity--I--love--you!"

Again strong men wept and turned from one another to hide the signs of their weakness.

The wife walked beside her doomed lover back to the jail. As they went through the narrow pa.s.sage to his cell, the tall, rough-looking prison guard who accompanied them brushed close, caught her hand and pressed it.

His eyes met hers in a quick look that said more plainly than words:

"I must see you alone."

She waited outside the jail until he reappeared.

He approached her boldly and spoke as if he were delivering a casual message.

"Keep your courage, young woman. And don't you be surprised at anything I'm going to say to you. There's people lookin' at us now. I'm just tellin' you a message your husband's told me--you understand."