CHAPTER IX.
THE CONCLUSION.
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HAVING no ambition to furnish a history for Lawyers to
quote from, or to help establish precedents for the bad
practices of criminal prosecutors, we shall refrain from giving
a report of the trial of Mr. Jacobs and the brothers Tuck.
The verdicts alone must satisfy our readers. The brothers
were both found guilty. Not that the evidence against them
was by any means strong, or the prosecution conducted with
unusual ability; for one was exceedingly slight, and the other
remiss and gentle, and in ordinary cases would have failed to
procure a verdict of guilty; but there had been three or four
acquittals of murderers during the year, in cases where the
evidence was of such a nature that the juries could not have
failed to convict without perjuring themselves; and the public
had manifested such a spirit of resentment that the jury who
sat upon the Tucks, rather consulted the wishes of the public
(like good republicans as they were) than their obligations as
jurors, and returned a verdict accordingly, after being absent
from the jury box but a very few minutes. They were sustained
by the public sentiment, and highly complimented for
their moral courage by the press, and even clergymen thanked
God in their pulpits that there was some virtue yet left in the
community. Demonstrations like these must have been infinitely
more gratifiying to good citizens, than the approval
of so inconsiderable a monitor as conscience. A man's
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conscience having no vote, and being without any political influence
whatever, can never be a safe tribunal for an American
citizen to appeal to.
It was midnight when the brothers were brought into court
to hear the verdict; and as soon as it was pronounced, the
judge and jurors, hurried home to their wives and little
ones, the prisoners were hurried back to their cells, and officers
and lawyers, and all the denizens of filthy court rooms
and hideous prisons,—human vultures that love to pray on
human suffering and crime—the whole brood of unclean
creatures that gorge themselves with such pickings as may
be found in the precints of the gallows, threw aside their
wooden badges of authority, their red tape documents, and
bundles of worthless papers, and hurried home to their places
of rest like the spectators of a melo-drama when the last scene
is ended. The judge and the jurors, the crier and the counsel,
the attornies and the turn-keys, had all earned their fees
and lay down to sleep with the consciousness of having done
their duty to their country. They had succeeded in condemning
two fellow beings to death, and then put up their
prayers for pleasant dreams and long life to themselves. Of
the whole brood, perhaps not one thought more of the wretched
men whose sufferings had been the subject of their gratification,
than the crow does of the once noble racer whose
carcass has afforded him a meal.
The next morning Tom Tuck was found hanging by the
neck from a beam which crossed his cell. It having appeared
in the course of the trial that he was the sole originator of
the crime for which himself and his brother were condemned,
the Governor was induced to pardon Fred, and the public
was cheated of all the agreeable incidents of a hanging, for
Mr. Jacobs got clear of the gallows by turning State's evidence,
although he was found guilty of uttering counterfeit
notes, for which he was sentenced to the state-prison, where
he had the satisfaction of being joined in a short time by
every one of his old associates.
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There being not the slightest evidence to criminate Jeremiah,
he was released from confinement the day after his
committal, and during the whole trial of the Tucks he labored
incessantly in their behalf, and exerted himself to the utmost
of his ability to solace and comfort their mother, making
many sacrifices for her sake, and sending her money when
he supposed her to be in want.
The estate of the firm was put into the hands of receivers
appointed by the Chancellor, who employed Jeremiah for
their chief assistant at the same salary that he had been receiving
as correspondent clerk. The coffee speculation turned
out as profitable as the financier had anticipated, and fully
justified the high character as a merchant which his friends
had given him. The year before had been one of unusual
depression in the mercantile world; everybody felt poor, without
any particular cause, however, and it was universally admitted
by business men and politicians that the country was
on the verge of bankruptcy and ruin; now, a change had
taken place and prices of everything were advancing, and
everybody felt rich with as little cause as they had before for
feeling poor. The consequence was that the estate of Tremlett
& Tuck, to the astonishment of everybody, paid all its
debts, including even the fradulent notes of Fred, which had
been sold to the brothers Mildmen, and there being a balance
of a few hundred dollars left, the Receiver presented it to
Jeremiah, as a reward for his industry and honesty. But Jeremiah
did not consider himself privileged to keep it, and made
a present of it to Fred Tuck, who was thereby enabled to establish
a shop in the Bowery for the sale of segars and
cheap novels, from the profits of which he supported himself
and his mother quite genteelly, although in a style so far removed
from their former magnificence, that it will admit of no
comparison with it. After a few months he removed from
the Bowery into Broadway, where he enlarged his stock and
made a very manifest change in his manner of living, which
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caused many ill stories to be circulated in regard to him, for it
was supposed that he had not become honestly possessed of
his means. But lest the reader should entertain any such ill
thoughts, we will explain the cause of his sudden advancement.
As soon as Mr. Loudon heard the melancholy news of the
breaking up of the firm of Tremlett & Tucks, by the death
of the senior partner and the arrest of the others, he forwarded
on to Jeremiah the will that John had deposited with him for
safe keeping, before leaving Charleston. It had been lying
in a pigeon-hole of his iron chest, quite forgotten. The testator
had bequeathed his entire property to be divided equally
between Jeremiah and Fidelia, but Jeremiah refused to receive
anything for his own portion excepting a gold pencil
case that had been a new year's present from old Mr. Tremlett
to his son the year before he died; the remainder of the
personal property, consisting of a small collection of books, a
few good pictures, a gold watch and his wearing apparel, he
insisted that Fidelia should receive; and she was too happy
to receive anything that had once belonged to her affianced
husband to refuse them. The Staten Island cottage had to
be sold. Jeremiah would have bought it, but it was infinitely
beyond his reach; he could not hope ever to be rich
enough to buy it; but still he could not endure the thought
that anybody should inhabit it but Fidelia, for he knew that
it was built expressly for her, and he modestly requested the
purchaser of it, Mr. Haverstraw, a dry goods jobber, not to sell
it without first giving him the refusal of it.
When Fred Tuck heard that John's will had been found,
it occurred to him immediately that the legatees might recover
the whole amount of Mr. Tremlett's property, which
had been taken possession of by the State, upon their producing
the will of the latter, which had been secreted by his mother;
and having consulted with his lawyer and found that
he was right in his conjecture, he determined to bring the
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matter to a profitable account for himself. He therefore called
upon Jeremiah, and after obtaining a promise of secresy
from him, told him that he could put him in possession of
Mr. Tremlett's lost will by which he could recover one half
of the old merchant's estate. At first Jeremiah was incredulous,
but Fred told him if he would give a conditional bond
for ten thousand dollars, to be paid when he got possession of
the estate, the will should be placed in his hands in less than
an hour. With these conditions Jeremiah complied, and the
will was brought to him within the stipulated time. At sight
of this once eagerly souglit document he was quite overcome
and unable to speak for a long time; not that he exulted in
this sudden and altogether unlooked for good fortune to himself.
Very far from it. He thought not of his own interests
in the matter at all, but of his dear friend whose life had been
sacrificed, and of all the suffering and distress that had been
endured by others for want of the worthless parchment
which he held in his hand. He retired to his chamber and
wept, and prayed Heaven not to desert him in the day of
prosperity which now seemed dawning upon him.
Having given vent to his feelings in tears and fortified himself
against temptation by prayer, he hastened to Fidelia and
imparted the strange news to her; but he cautioned her
against indulging in too lively hopes for as they could only
gain possession of the property by a suit at law, if they gained
it at all, he could not allow himself to entertain any anticipations
of success. Mr Polesworthy had assured him that there
could be no doubt of his recovering the property, but he had
seen enough of legal tribunals to know that of all uncertain
things the law is the most uncertain.
In process of time, after being harrassed, and perplexed and
put to as much expense, as the law in its most liberal construction
would allow its ministers to inflict, the money was
recovered, amounting to a trifle more than four hundred
thousand dollars.
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The first investment that Jeremiah made, was in the purchase
of the Staten Island cottage, for which he was compelled
to pay about three times its original cost; for Mr. Haverstraw,
the owner, perceiving that he had got hold of a customer
who was determined to purchase, demanded a sum
which brought a blush into his own face when he named it.
But Jeremiah gave his check for it, without hesitation, as he
would have done had it been three times as much, and then
tendered the cottage to Fidelia. She accepted of it, for she
well knew that he would be grieved if she either refused it,
or offered to pay for it. Fred Tuck received his reward, but
we regret to be compelled to record the fact that he relapsed
into his former extravagant habits, got deeply in debt and at
last was obliged to abscond to escape imprisonment for some
offence, the exact nature of which we never ascertained. His
mother being left in complete destitution, Jeremiah took it
upon himself to see that her wants were duly supplied, although
he never could prevail upon himself to see her, and at
her death, which happened in a few months after her son, deserted
her, defrayed the expenses of her funeral, and caused a
plain white stone with the simple record of her death, to be
placed above her remains.
While the suit for the recovery of Mr. Tremlett's property
was in progress, Jeremiah and Fidelia were, of necessity, often
brought together; but apart from this cause a community of
grief made the society of each other at first a solace and at last
a delight. How it happened we know not; indeed, the parties
scarce knew themselves, but when Fidelia went down to
Staten Island in the flowery month of June to take possession
of her cottage, Jeremiah accompanied her as her husband.
Thither her grand parents and the old drab parrot were removed,
and a flaunting brick store with square granite
columns soon supplanted the modest little yellow house which
they vacated. The old bird seemed at first a little discontented
by her change of residence, but seeing the same faces about
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her and hearing the same voices, and above all, inhaling the
same fumes from the old sailor's pipe, she soon grew reconciled
to her new abode and behaved with unexceptionable
propriety for a whole year, when, one morning at breakfast
she threw the whole family into ecstasies of delight by striving
to imitate the piping tones of a new born child. But to
the day of her death, which did not happen until many such
little episodes had occurred, she never failed, at the prescribed
evening hour, to ejaculate, in her hoarse voice, the always
welcome sound
“LET US PRAY.”
