This is section fifty five of The Gilded Age. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Gilded Age, A Tale of to Day by Mark Twain and Ceed Warner, Chapter fifty five. Henry Brierly took the stand, requested by the district attorney to tell the jury all he knew about the killing. He narrated the circumstances substantially, as the
reader already knows them. He accompanied miss Hawkins to New York at her request, supposing she was coming in relation to a bill then pending in Congress to secure the attendants of absent members. Her note to him was here shown. She appeared to be very much excited at the Washington station. After she had asked the conductor several questions, he heard her say he can't escape. Witness asked her who, and she replied nobody did not see her. During the night,
they traveled in a sleeping car. In the morning, she appeared not to have slept, said she had a headache. In crossing the ferry, she asked him about the shipping in sight. He pointed out where the cunarders lay. When in port. They took a cup of coffee that morning at a restaurant. She said she was anxious to reach the Southern Hotel where mister Simons, one of the absent members, was staying, before he went out. She was entirely self possessed,
and beyond unusual excitement, did not act unnaturally. After she had fired twice at Colonel Selby, she turned the pistol towards her own breast, and witness snatched it from her. She had been a great deal with Selby in Washington,
appeared to be infatuated with him. Cross examined by mister Braham, Miss mister Briley, mister Braham had in perfection this lawyer's trick of annoying a witness by drawling out the mister as if unable to recall the name until the whitis is sufficiently aggravated, and then suddenly, with a rising inflection, flinging his name at him with startling unexpectedness. Mister er Er Briarly, what is your occupation? Civil engineer? Sir ah er,
civil engineer, With a glance at the jury. Following that occupation with Miss Hawkins smiles by the jury, No, Sir, said Harry Reddening, how long have you known the prisoner? Two years, Sir, I made her acquaintance in Hawkeye, Missouri. M M M. Mister er Briarly, were you not a lover of Miss Hawkins? Objected to. I submit your honor that I have the right to establish the relation of this unwilling witness to the prisoner admitted well, Sir, said Harry, hesitatingly.
We were friends. You act like a friend, sarcastically. The jury were beginning to hate this neatly dressed young Sprigg. Missster Briarly, didn't Miss Hawkins refuse you, Harry blushed and stammered and looked at the judge. You must answer, Sir, said his honor. She she didn't accept me. No, I should think not Briarly, do you dare tell the jury that you had no interest in the removal of your rival? Colonel Selby, roared mister Braham in a voice of thunder.
Nothing like this, Sir, Nothing like this, protested the witness. That's all, sir, said mister Braham severely. One word, said the district attorney, had you the least suspicion of the prisoner's intention up to the moment of the shooting, Not the least, answered Harry. Earnestly, of course, not, of course, not nodded mister Braham to the jury. The prosecution then put upon the stand the other witnesses of the shooting at the hotel, and the clerk and the attending physicians.
The fact of the homicide was clearly established. Nothing new was elicited, except from the clerk, in reply to a question by mister Braham, the fact that when the prisoner inquired for Colonel Selby, she appeared excited and there was a wild look in her eyes. The dying deposition of Colonel Selby was then produced. It set forth Laura's threats, but there was a significant addition to it which the
newspaper report did not have. It seemed that after the deposition was taken, as reported, the colonel was told for the first time by his physicians that his wounds were mortal. He appeared to be in great mental agony and fear, and said he had not finished his deposition. He added, with great difficulty, in long pauses, these words, I have not told all I must tell. Put it down. I wronged her years ago. I can't see. Oh God, I deserved that was all. He fainted and did not revive again.
The Washington Railway conductor testified that the prisoner had asked him if a gentleman and his family went out on the evening train, describing the persons he had since learned were Colonel Selby and family. Susan Cullum, colored servant at Senator Dilworthies, was sworn. Knew Colonel Selby had seen him come to the house often and be alone in the parlor with Miss Hawkins. He came the day but one
before he was shot. She let him in. He appeared flustered, like she heard talking in the parlor, peered like it was Quarrelin was a feared sumfin was wrong. Just put her ear to the keyhole of the back parlor door. Heard a man's voice. I can't I can't good God quite beggin like heard young missus voice, take your choice. Then if you abandon me, you knows what to expect. Then he rushes out in the house. I goes in,
and I says, Missus, did you ring? She was a standing like a tiger, her eyes flashin I come right out. This was the substance of Susan's testimony, which was not shaken in the least by severe cross examination. In reply to mister Brahm's question if the prisoner did not look insane, Susan said, Lord, no, sir, just mad as a hornet. Washington Hawkins was sworn. The pistol identified by the officer as the one used in the homicide was produced. Washington
admitted that it was his. She had asked him for it one morning, saying she thought she had heard burglars the night before. Admitted that he never had heard burglars in the house. Had anything unusual happened just before that? Nothing that he remembered. Did he accompany her to a reception at missus Schoonmaker's a day or two before? Yes, what occurred? Little by little It was dragged out of the witness that Laura had behaved strangely there, appeared to
be sick, and he had taken her home. Upon being pushed, he admitted that she had afterwards confessed that she saw Selby there, and Washington volunteered the statement that Selby was a black hearted villain. The district attorney said, with some annoyance there there that will do. The defense declined to examine mister Hawkins at present. The case for the prosecution was closed of the murder. There could not be the least doubt or that the prisoner followed the deceased to
New York with her murderous intent. On the evidence, the jury must convict, and might do so without leaving their seats. This was the condition of the case. Two days after the jury had been selected, a week had passed since the trial opened, and a Sunday had intervened. The public who read the reports of the evidence saw no chance for the prisoner's escape. The crowd of spectators who had watched the trial were moved with the most profound sympathy
for Laura. Mister Braham opened the case for the defense. His manner was subdued, and he spoke in so low a voice that it was only by reason of perfect silence in the courtroom that he could be heard. He spoke very distinctly, however, and if his nationality could be discovered in his speech, it was only in a certain
richness and breadth of tone. He began by saying that he trembled at the responsibility he had undertaken, and he should altogether despair if he did not see before him a jury of twelve men of rare intelligence, whose acute minds would unravel all the sophistries of the prosecution. Men with a sense of honor which would revolt at the remorseless persecution of this hunted woman by the state, Men with hearts to feel for the wrongs of which she
was the victim. Far be it from him to cast any suspicion upon the motives of the able, eloquent, and ingenious lawyers of the state. They act officially. Their business is to convict. It is our business, gentlemen, to see that justice is done. It is my duty, gentlemen, to unfold to you one of the most affecting dramas in
all the history of misfortune. I shall have to show you a life the sport of fame and circumstances, hurried along through shifting storm and sun, bright with trusting innocence, and a non black with heartless villainy, a career which moves on in love and desertion and anguish, always hovered over by the dark specter of insanity, an insanity hereditary and induced by mental torture until it ends, If end, it must, in your verdict, by one of those fearful
accidents which are inscrutable to men, and of which God alone knows the secret. Gentlemen, I shall ask you to go with me, away from this court room and its minions of the law, away from the scene of this tragedy, to a distant I wish I could say a happier day. The story I have to tell is of a lovely little girl with sunny hair and laughing eyes, traveling with her parents, evidently people of wealth and refinement, upon a
Mississippi steamboat. There is an explosion, one of those terrible catastrophes which leave the imprint of an unsettled mind upon the survivors. Hundreds of mangled remains are sent into eternity. When the wreck is cleared away, this sweet little girl is found among the panic stricken survivors in the midst of a scene of horror enough to turn the steadiest brain. Her parents have disappeared, search even for their bodies is
in vain. The bewildered, stricken child, who can say what changes the fearful event wrought in her tender brain, clings to the first person who shows her sympathy. It is missus Hawkins. This good lady, who is still her loving friend, Laura, is adopted into the Hawkins family perhaps she forgets in time that she is not their child, she is an orphan. No, gentlemen, I will not deceive you, she is not an orphan. Worse than that, there comes another day of agony. She
knows that her father lives. Who is he? Where is he? Alas I cannot tell you through the scenes of this painful history. He flits here and there a lunatic. If he seeks his daughter. It is the purposeless search of a lunatic, as one who wanders bereft of reason, crying where is my child? Laura seeks her father in vain. Just as she is about to find him again and again, he disappears. He is gone, he vanishes. But this is only the prolog to the tragedy. Bear with me while
I relate it. Mister Braham takes out a handkerchief, unfolds it, slowly, crashes it in his nervous hand, and throws it on the table. Laura grew up in her humble southern home, a beautiful creature, the joy of the house, the pride of the neighborhood, the loveliest flower in all the sunny South. She might yet have been happy. She was happy, But the destroyer came into this paradise, He plucked the sweetest bud that grew there, and, having enjoyed its odor, trampled
it in the mire beneath his feet. George Selby, the deceased, a handsome, accomplished Confederate colonel, was this human fiend. He deceived her with a mock marriage. After some months, he brutally abandoned her and spurned her, as if she were a contemptible thing. All the time he had a wife in New Orleans. Laura was crushed for weeks, as I shall show you by the testimony of her adopted mother and brother. She hovered over death in delirium. Gentlemen, did
she ever emerge from this delirium? I shall show you that when she recovered her health, her mind was changed. She was not what she had been. You can judge yourselves whether the tottering reason ever recovered its throne. Years pass she is in Washington, apparently the happy favorite of a brilliant society. Her family have become enormously rich by one of those sudden turns in fortune that the inhabitants of America are familiar with, the discovery of immense mineral
wealth in some wild lands owned by them. She is engaged in a vast philanthropic scheme for the benefit of the poor by the use of this wealth. But alas, even here and now, the same relentless fate pursued her. The villain Selby appears again upon the scene, as if on purpose to complete the ruin of her life. He appeared to taunt her with her dishonor. He threatened exposure
if she did not become again the mistress of his passion. Gentlemen, do you wonder if this will woman thus pursued lost her reason was beside herself with fear, and that her wrongs preyed upon her mind until she was no longer responsible for her acts. I turn away my head as one who would not willingly look even upon them, just vengeance of heaven. Mister Brain paused, as if overcome by his emotions. Missus Hawkins and Washington were in tears, as
were many of the spectators. Also. The jury looked scared. Gentlemen, in this condition of affairs, it needed but a spark. I do not say a suggestion. I do not say a hint from this butterfly. Briarly, this rejected rival to cause the explosion. I make no charges. But if this woman was in her right mind when she fled from Washington and reached this city in company with Briarly, then I do not know what insanity is. Mister Braham sat down. He felt that he had the jury with him. A
burst of applause followed, which the officer promptly suppressed. Laura, with tears in her eyes, turned a grateful look upon her counsel. All the women among the spectators saw the tears and wept also, they thought, as they also looked at mister Braham, how handsome he is. Missus Hawkins took the stand. She was somewhat confused to be the target of so many eyes, but her honest and good face
at once told in Laura's favor. Missus Hawkins said, mister Braham, will you be kind enough to state the circumstances of your finding Laura. I object, said mister mc glynn, rising to his feet. This has nothing whatever to do with the case, your honor. I am surprised at it, even after the extraordinary speech of my learned friend. How do
you propose to connect it? Mister Braham asked the judge, if it please the court, said mister Brahme, rising impressively, Your honor has permitted the prosecution and I have submitted without a word, to go into the most extraordinary testimony to establish a motive. Are we to be shut out from showing that the motive attributed to us could not,
by reason of certain mental conditions exist? I propose, may it please your honor to show the cause and the origin of an aberration of mind, to follow it up with other like evidence, connecting it with the very moment of the homicide, showing a condition of the intellect of the prisoner that precludes responsibility. The state must insist upon
its objections, said the district attorney. The purpose evidently is to open the door to a mass of irrelevant testimony, the object of which is to produce an effect upon the jury. Your Honor well understands, perhaps, suggested the judge, the court ought to hear the testimony and exclude it afterwards.
If it is irrelevant, with your honor, hear argument on that certainly, and argument his honor did hear, or pretend to, for two whole days from all the council in turn, in the course of which the lawyers read contradictory decisions enough to perfectly establish both sides from volume after volume, whole libraries, in fact, until no mortal man could say what the rules were. The question of insanity, in all its legal aspects, was of course drawn into the discussion,
and its application affirmed and denied. The case was felt to turn upon the admission or rejection of this evidence. It was a sort of test trial of strength between the lawyers. At the end, the judge decided to admit the testimony, as the judge usually does in such cases, after a sufficient waste of time in what are called arguments. Missus Hawkins was allowed to go on end of chapter fifty five