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But Father O'Drea sat at the cot side and motioned the

officers away.

"Ye're through," he said. "It's my turn now. The few minutes that are left belong to Holy Church.”

"But the court had ordered the jury to hear his statement," said the assistant district attorney. "If you want McCreary freed"

The tired eyes opened and the boy whispered: "I am ready."

Father O'Drea turned to the surgeon in charge with a question he found no need to ask.

"Yes," said the surgeon, "but tell them to come quick and have it over. He's got more strength than nine out of ten men would have, but it can't last forever."

As the afternoon closed in the lad lay in a half stupor, merely opening his eyes at times and casting an appealing glance at Father O'Drea. Each time the priest shook his head and answered, "Not yet." Then in turn he would stoop and urge the dying lad to his last duty as a Christian, and each time the boy would in turn shake his head and repeat the words, "Not yet."

"Oh, Jimmie, me boy," pleaded the Father, "don't take the chance, don't wait too long

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"Not yet," sighed Jimmie, and the eyes closed again. At last came a messenger, and with his first step the lad's eyes opened, and an eager look came into his face. "The court has directed the jury to bring in a verdict of 'Not Guilty,' and has discharged McCreary." "Is he free?" whispered Jimmie.

"Yes; free."

"Can they touch him again?"

"Never; not even if they found out absolutely that he had done it."

"Faither, I'm ready," said Jimmie, and the few fleeting moments of the lad's life belonged to the priest and Holy Church.

As Father O'Drea left St. Barnabas, where he had closed the eyes of the dead lad, he found before the door a big man, half crouching and shaking as with a chill. He seized the priest by the arm.

"Is he?" he could not speak the word. "Yes, Mike, he's dead."

"Did he "

"What he told me was under seal of the confessional, and no man will ever know; but Mike, if ye ever take a crooked step again in your whole life, and there's a curse the Church can find that'll send ye to Hell, and keep ye there through all eternity, ye may be sure I'll find it, or me name isn't Shemus O'Drea, as was given me in Holy Baptism!"

The Trial of Tom Grayson*

BY EDWARD EGGLESTON.

Tom Grayson, accused of the murder of George Lockwood, on the night of the Timber Creek camp-meeting, finds everything against him. The motive is clear, his pistol has been found near the body, he was near Lockwood at the time of the shooting, and David Sovine swears that he saw the crime committed. Public sentiment is strongly against Tom, and his only hope is in his lawyer, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln, too, seemed to have given up the case.

L

INCOLN sat out the forenoon without making a note, without a book or a scrap of paper before him, and without asking the witnesses a question. If he had given up the case, asked the audience, why did he not fight on every small point, as any other lawyer would have done, for the sake of making a show of zeal? To Allen, the public prosecutor, there was something annoying and ominous in Lincoln's silence. With a taste for climaxes, Allen had reserved his chief witness to the last. He already felt sure of his case; this was his finishing stroke.

"Call David Sovine," he said.

Dave appeared embarrassed. His coarse face twitched. and quivered, and this appeared to annoy him; he sought to hide it by an affection of nonchalance, as he rested his weight now on one foot and now on the other.

"Tell the jury whether you were at the Timber Creek camp-meeting on the 9th of August."

*From "The Graysons." Copyright, 1887, by Edward Eggleston,

"Yes, I was."

"What did you see there? Tell about the shooting."

Dave told the story substantially as he had told it at the coroner's inquest. He related his parting from Lockwood, Tom's appearance on the scene, Tom's threatening speech, Lockwood's entreaty that Tom would not shoot him, and Tom's shooting.

"How far away from Mason and Lockwood were you when the shooting took place?" asked the prosecutor. "Twenty feet or more."

"What did Tom shoot with?"

"A pistol."

"What kind of a pistol?"

"One of the ole-fashion' sort-flint-lock, weth a ruther long barrel."

Tom's pistol was handed down.

"Tell the jury whether this looks like the pistol."

"Twas just such a one as that. I can't say it was that, but it was hung to the stock like that, an' was about as long in the barrel.'

"What did Grayson do when he had shot George, and what did you do?"

"Tom run off as fast as his feet could carry him, an' I went up towards George, who'd fell over. He was dead ag'inst I could get there. Then purty soon the crowd come a-runnin' up to see what the fracas was."

After bringing out some further details, Allen turned to his opponent, and said:

"You can have the witness, Mr. Lincoln."

There was a brief pause, and it was clear from the looks of the jury that their minds were so well made up that even a judge's charge in favor of the prisoner, if such a thing had been conceivable, would have gone for nothing. Lincoln at length rose slowly from his chair.

"You said you were with Lockwood just before the shooting?" he asked.

"Yes." Dave was all alert and answered promptly. "Were you not pretty close to him when he was shot?" "No, I wasn't," said Dave, his suspicions excited by this mode of attack. It appeared that the lawyer, for some reason, wanted to make him confess of having been nearer to the scene, and perhaps implicated, and he therefore resolved to fight off.

"Are you sure you were as much as ten feet away?"

"I was more than twenty."

"You had been talking to Lockwood, and you parted from him as a friend?"

"Yes, of course."

"By the time Tom came up you'd got-how far away? Be careful now."

"I've told you twiste.

More than twenty feet."

"You might have been mistaken about its being Tom, then ?"

"No, I wasn't."

"What time of night was it?"

"Long towards 10, I sh'd think." "It might have been II?"

"No, 't wusn't later'n about 10.” "Nor before 9?"

"No, 't wus nigh onto 10, I said." The witness showed some irritation, and spoke louder than before.

"How far away were you from the pulpit and meetingplace?"

66 'Twixt a half a mile an' a mile."

"Are you sure it was not less than a half mile."

"No, it wuz nigh onto a mile. I didn't measure it, but it's a mighty big three-quarters."

The witness answered combatively, and in this mood he made a better impression than he did on his direct examination. The prosecuting attorney looked relieved. Tom listened with an attention painful to see, his eyes moving anxiously from Lincoln to Dave, as he wondered what point in Dave's armor the lawyer could be driving at. He saw plainly that his salvation was staked on some last throw.

"You didn't have any candle in your hand, did you, at any time during the evening?"

"No! What should we have a candle for?"

"Did either George Lockwood or Tom have a candle?" "No, of course not! What'd they have candles for?" "Where were the lights on the camp-ground?" "Closte by the preachers' tent."

"More than three-quarters of a mile away from the place where the murder took place?"

"Anyway as much as three-quarters," said Dave, who began to wish that he could modify his previous statement of the distance.

"How far away were you from Lockwood when the murder took place?"

"Twenty feet."

"You said 'or more' a while ago."

"Well, 't wusn't no less, p'r'aps," said Dave, showing signs of worry. "You don't think I measured it, do yeh?"

"There were no lights nearer than three-quarters of a mile?"

"No," said the witness, the cold perspiration beading on his face as he saw Lincoln's trap opening to receive him.

"You don't mean to say that the platform torches up by the preachers' tent gave any light three-quarters of a mile away, and in the woods?""

"No, of course not."

"How could you see Tom and know that it was he who fired, when the only light was nearly a mile away, and inside a circle of tents?"

"Saw by moonlight," said Sovine, snappishly, dashing at any gap that offered a possible way of escape." "What sort of trees were there on the ground?"

"Beech."

"Beech leaves are pretty thick in August?" asked Lincoln.

"Ye-es, ruther," gasped the witness, seeing a new pitfall yawning just ahead of him.

"And yet light enough from the moon came through these thick beech-trees to let you know Tom Grayson?" "Yes."

"And you full twenty feet away?"

"Well, about that; nearly twenty, anyhow."

shifted his weight to his right foot.

Dave

"And you pretend to say to this court that by the moonlight, that you got through the beech trees, in August, you could even see that it was a pistol that Tom had?”

"Yes." Dave now stood on his left foot.

"And you could see what kind of a pistol it was?" This was said with a little laugh, very exasperating to the witness.

"Yes, I could," answered Dave, with dogged resolution not to be faced down.

"And just how the barrel was hung to the stock?" There was a positive sneer in Lincoln's voice now.

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