Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 January 1884 — THREE MINUTES TO TWELVE. [ARTICLE]

THREE MINUTES TO TWELVE.

On a cold night some twenty-three years ago, when the earth was bound in a black frost and the bitter wind blew strong and shrewdly. I was returning home to spend the evening at a friend’s house, situated some three or four miles out oT town. The sky was so black, the country lanes so dark, that I was truly thankful when the scattered lights of an outlying suburb began to twinkle in the distance: and it was with a sigh of relief that I stopped under the first lamp-post I came to and looked at my watch. It was no easy task, for the lamp-glass had a pane broken and the strong wind blew the gas in all directions and almost extinguished it. .V, I read the time at last—three ,jnin\ ntes to twelve—and, looking up from my watch-face, I started to see a man standing close opposite to me. I had heard nothing of his approach. We looked at each other but for a moment, yet it was time sufficient to imprint bis features indelibly on my memory. A tall, shabby man, in a threadbare, black frock coat and a seedy tall hat, his face lantern-jawed and sallow, his eyes sunken and lustreless, his beard long and ill-trimmed. In a tone of elaborate civility he asked me the time, thanked me for my answer, and giving me good-night, passed into the black darkness which seemed to engulf him like a grave. I turned for a moment to think of his lonely walk in that grim obscurity, and resumed my homeward way, laughing at myself for the start he had given me, and reflecting that the strong wind had blown away the sound of his approach. I thought of him as I sat and smoked my pipe over my fire, and~l felt a comfortable slmdder steal over me as I imagined him facing the bitter blast in liis insufficient clothing. In the course of a week or two the incident—trifling enough, heaven knows—faded from my memory and I thought no more of it. In those days I was actively engaged in the timber trade, and the course of my business took me a good deal about the county and brought me largely in' contact with the agents of the different noblemen and country gentlemen of the "district. With one of these agents who resided near the county town of L , I had numerous transactions, and I used often to run down to L- to meet him, for the town was only fifteen miles away and w;as on a line of railway. It •was a dull little hole enough, that only warmed up into life when the militia were out or the assizes were on. One night I returned from L ——, having just made a large purchase from my friend the agent, whose master, a sporting nobleman, was reduced to cut down the family timber. When I fell asleep that night I had a very simple bnt vivid dream. I thought I was standing on a lofty hill. By my side stood a veiled figure, who, with a commanding gesture, mptioned me towards the town of L , which lay in the far distance. Then I awoke. Of course I explained the thing to myself easily enough. I had been a good deal engaged in the neighborhood' of the place, and had a large venture more or less remotely connected with it. Still'the dream was so vivid that I could not dismiss it from my thoughts daring the whole of the day, and when I went to bed at night I\ wondered if it wonld again visit me. It did come again; precisely the same dream in precisely the same manner. Once more I found a convincing explanation. I>onbtless I had been "thinking too much about the first dream, and this bad given rise to the second. Bnt my explanation did not eenviaea me in the least; again I was haunted by the thing throughout the day, and when I came home at night my preoccupation was so evident that it attracted the attention of my wife. Slip, questioned me upbn the cause, and, only too thankful to unbosom myself of what was now almost a trouble, I told her about the dream and jts repetition. She had the t*«t pot to laugh at, me, but was evidently little impressed by the narrative. ’"A- i HBSSSfv.ti' .-Jr.:- -> - -

The third night it came again, if anything more vividMand startling than This tiniß I was Wtcriy tinhinged; the pale face that fronted me in the looking glass was hardly recognizable for my own. I went down to breakfast filled with a foreboding of some misfortune —bad news in my letters—l knew not what. The maid entered with the letter“Thcre,” said my wife, passing me a letter on which was the L—— postmark. “That breaks your dream, John.” I opened it hurriedly. It was from the agent, requesting me to meet him at L—- that day at 1 o’clock, to arrange a difficulty that had arisen in the performance of his contract. I was intensely relieved. Here was an opportunity to go to L , and perhaps, the very fact of going would put me right. There were two fast trains to L—- in the morning, but I decided to go by the first, regardless of the fact that I should have some hours to wait. So I found myself shortly in a firstclass compartment, speeding away towards my destination. The carriage was full. Pipes exhaled’ their fragrance, newspapers were turned and flattened, and there was that leisurely kind of morning conversation that prevails among men going off by an early train to their day’s work. I soon discovered that I had fallen amongst a party of barristers, and their* chief topic was a peculiarly interest ing case which was to be finished to-day at the L assizes. “He must sum up against the, prisoner,” said a gentleman with a fat, florid face and long sandy whiskers, who wore a light overcoat and shepherd’s plaid trousers. “The defense was a complete failure and deserved to be.” “It was certainly rather audacious,” returned a .clean-shaven young man with a double eye glass, who sat opposite me. “But I don’t like circumstantial evidence.” “All evidence is more or less circumstantial,” answered he of the florid complexion; “and this man is as clearly guilty to my mind as if there had been a dozen.witnesses to stand by and see him do the deed. That is my opinion, Hey wood.” And the oracle disappeared behind its newspaper. Feeling glad to discover any topic that would divert my thoughts from their gloomy forebodings, I addressed myself to Hey wood, the young barrister, with whom I had a slight acqnaintance. . ~—...—; ■■ — T “Yon seem much interested in this trial that is going on,” I said. “May I ask if you are engaged upon it?” “No*” he answered. “ But it is a curious ease, A man, a clerk, dismissed from his employment is accused, of murdering the cashier of the firm. The •evidence against him is entirely circumstantial, but the defense broke down at the most critical point, and the case certainly looks very black for the prisoner.” The train was now slackening speed, and there was a general rising. I rose too. “Are you going to get out here?” said Mr.‘Hey wood, opening the door as we glided into the station. “Have you come down so early on business ?” ‘ “Ye—es,”l said, wishing to goodness I knew what the immediate business was. “Nothing very urgent, though,” I added, half to myself, as I got out, “If you have the time to spare you had better turn in and hear the end of the trial,” said Heywood. “The court will bo crowded with ladies, no doubt, but I can smuggle you into a corner.” Not knowing what to do with myself for the next two hours, I accepted the offer with gratitude. I was soon seated in an obscure corner of the dingy, illlighted, ill-ventilated court-house, which would have been ill-smelling too, had it not been for the scent wafted from the numerous ladies present. One of these, a bnxom female obstruction, who ought to have known better, was just in front of me and blocked my view with an enormous bonnet. I could not see the prisoner or his counsel, or even the cloak over his head, at which the people kept looking eagerly as the hour fixed for the recommencement of the trial approached. At last there was a stir and bustle, caused by persons invisible to me, then a call for silence, and after a few preliminaries the summing up commenced. I listened the more intently because I could see nothing. The clear, cold, telling sentences cut deep into my consciousness. How distinct and convincing it all was! How all these minute facts, the mute testimony of footmarks and the like, arranged and distributed by that powerful intellect, grouped themselves into the damning proof of guilt. I cared nothing for the prisoner, had no personal interest in the trial, but rnv mind wqs wonderfully facinated by' this tale of horror. At length the weighty tones ceased and a mul-mur of expectation and relief rau-round the as’sembly. At tin’s moment the woman with the huge bonnet shifted her seat and I obtained a full view of the prisoner. I started involuntarily. Where had I seen that face before ? The jury returned after a short absence; the verdict was guilty, accompanied with a recommendation to mercy. Again the judge’s solemn tones sounded through the court; again they ceased. There was dead silence.. I sprang to my feet as if impelled to do so by .some unseen power, and looked steadily at the prisoner, pis face was averted from me for the moment, but the looks of the people showed that he was about to speak. Slowly he turned round and, in a voice whose deep, earnest tones could be heard all over the assen Joly, he said: “There lives but one man wbo can prove me innocent— and there he stands."

With white face and outstretched arm be; pointed—as I gazed' at him with a sudden flash of recognition. It was. the man I seen under the lamp. And, by a strange coincidence, at this moment the court clock struck 12. The plea that had been set by the defense was an alibi. But there was a space of some two Lours that could not be accounted for, and the theory of the prosecution was that the crime had been committed during that time. r, My evidence supplied "the missing link, for the place in which I had seen the man !~

was so far distaut from the scene of the murder that it was impossible for ''Aim to have been anywhere near at the tpne of'its commission. And the dream ? Only a coincidence, you will say, perhaps, or a fit "of indigestion, or my timber contract. Nevertheless, as I have Hold it to you, so it happened. Explain it away who can.