Chapter IV

It was not in human nature to forget the repeated slights and insults with which Tremaine had sought to wound the feelings of his old school-mate; but it was in human nature to imitate the divine exemplar, to forgive injuries, and to return good for evil, and Robert Dunning promised Sophia that he would do all in his power to effect the liberation of her husband. For this purpose it became necessary that he should visit Tremaine in prison. But the culprit obstinately refused to see him, until at length, finding the time draw near when he would be publicly arraigned at the bar, he consented to his admittance. Dunning gave him to understand that he must know the facts of the case, at the same time assuring him that he would plead his cause with pleasure, and that there was no doubt of his acquittal.

“The thing can be easily managed,” said Tremaine, doggedly—“I intend to plead an alibi.”

Dunning started.

“Is this necessary, Mr. Tremaine? I thought the charge could not be proven against you?”

“Nor can it, if you are the expert lawyer you are said to be.”

“Mr. Tremaine, let us understand each other. Is it important that you should plead an alibi?”

“It is.”

“Then I regret that I cannot undertake your cause. I was still under the impression that you were innocent.”

“And who dares say I am not? Did you, sir, come here to entrap me in my words? Who will dare say I am not innocent, when the most famous lawyer in town shall have proven that I was far from here on the night of the robbery?”

The last words were said in a sneering and almost contemptuous manner.

“I must repeat my regret that I cannot undertake your cause, while at the same time I assure you that I shall be silent as to what has transpired between us.”

“Puppy!” exclaimed Tremaine, thoroughly enraged. “Who asked you to undertake it? Who asked you to come and thrust yourself upon me? Puppy—plebeian! did I seek advice or assistance from you?”

“Mr. Tremaine,” replied Dunning, with a calm and gentlemanly dignity—“Mr. Tremaine, it is vain talking in this manner. I came to you in the spirit of kindness—but my errand has been a fruitless one.”

Before Tremaine had time to reply the door was opened by the keeper, and Dunning passed out of the cell.

It was with a heavy heart Fanny heard from her husband that he could not undertake to plead for the accused, and, gently as she could, she broke the sad news to Sophia. Browne and Tremaine were tried, convicted and sentenced to the State prison. And now the hand which had sinfully lavished thousands—the hand that had been kept so daintily white and soft—the hand of the “son of a gentleman” was roughly manacled, and linked to the brown, hard, weather-beaten hand of a fellow convict. He who had been the pampered heir of luxury was now to be the partaker of coarse fare—the daily companion of all that was base and vile—and the nightly dweller in the lone dark cell of a prison. He, the once flattered, courted and caressed, was to pass shamefully from the haunts of his fellow-man, and, after a few exclamations of wonder and reproach, was finally to be forgotten.

But there was one secretly at work, one who had been spurned, one whose noble hand had been flung aside with contempt—and that one was now busily employed in writing petitions, in traveling to and fro, and doing all in his power to obtain the liberation of the man who had ever treated him with insult and scorn. At length he was successful, and Tremaine was pardoned on condition of his leaving the State. But for Browne, who had been recognized as an old offender, there were no attempts made to procure his release.

It was with mingled feelings of shame and defiance that Tremaine ungraciously received the assurance of his freedom from the mouth of Dunning; for, the better to avoid observation, the latter went himself for the prisoner, brought him from his convict cell, and conveyed him to the warm hospitalities of a happy home, where he was received by Mrs. Dunning with that refined delicacy and unobtrusive kindness which soon placed him comparatively at ease in their society.

A strange and embarrassed meeting was that of Tremaine and his wife. Sophia’s first impulse was to break out into invective against him who had thus brought disgrace and ruin, not only upon himself, but upon her. Better feelings, however, prevailed, for she had learned many a lesson of late, and had already begun to catch the kind and forgiving spirit of those with whom she dwelt; so, after a few moments’ hesitation, a few moments’ struggle between pride, anger and womanly tenderness, she drew near to her husband, laid her head upon his bosom, and sobbed in very grief and sorrow of heart. “Sophia!” “Tremaine!” were the only words uttered during that first outburst of anguish. But soon the fountain of thought was unsealed, when, instead of taunts and mutual upbraidings, the bitter lessons learned in the school of adversity made them self-accusing, and willing to excuse each other.

But little time was given to make arrangements for the departure of Tremaine, who had determined not only on leaving the State, but the country. Mr. and Mrs. Dunning wished Sophia to remain with them, at least until her husband had procured some situation which might afford him a competent support. But Sophia would not listen to this—she would go with him—“she could do many things,” she said, “to aid him.” Fanny Dunning smiled, but she knew that Sophia was right in thus fulfilling her wifely duties, and both herself and her husband prepared every thing necessary for the comfort of the voyagers.

It was a bright morning in May, when these true and tried friends accompanied Tremaine and his wife in the noble ship which bore them down the bay, and with many a warm tear and repeated blessing wished them a prosperous voyage to England, and returned to the city.

And now we cannot better conclude their story than by giving an extract from a letter, written some time after the occurrence of the events already related, by Mr. Tremaine to his friend Judge Dunning.

“I must congratulate you, my dear Dunning, on your elevation to the bench; but I must not allow myself to utter all the praises that are swelling at my heart, nor does it require words to convey to you my respect, my esteem, my gratitude, and my love—ay, my love—for I do love you as a brother.

“Sophy bids me haste and tell you our good fortune—softly, dear wife, I will do so in a moment or two. You may perhaps recollect, my dear friend, that I wrote you how difficult it was for me to procure employment on my first arrival in Liverpool, and that this was mainly owing to my total ignorance of any kind of business. Indeed, had it not been for the few valuables belonging to my wife, which she cheerfully parted with, and had it not been for her kind and encouraging words, I should have yielded to despair. You know, too, my dear Dunning, that, glad to do any thing in honesty, I at last obtained a situation as clerk in a grocery store.

“How often has my cheek burned with shame, at the recollection of my silly contempt for trades-people, when I was worse than idling away my time at college? How often has my heart smote me when I thought of my conduct toward you, my noble-minded, my best earthly friend? But why repeat all this? You have long since forgiven me, and yet I never can forgive myself. And now for my good fortune. My employer has enlarged his business and taken me into partnership, so that I am in a fair way of being once more a rich man, (and may I not add a wiser one?) and your little namesake here, Robert Dunning, who is standing at my knee, is in an equally fair way of remaining what he now is—the son of a grocer. Heaven grant that he may in every thing resemble the man to whom his father once used the words as a term of reproach. This is now my highest earthly ambition for my boy, and I pray that my own lessons in the school of adversity may enable me to teach him to place a juster estimate on the empty distinctions of society, and to learn how true are the words of the poet—

“Honor and shame from no condition rise;

Act well thy part, there all the honor lies.”