Forty-one Thieves: A Tale of California by Angelo Hall (best books under 200 pages .txt) 📖

In vain one may search for a similar reminder of the highwayman Darcy, the actual murderer of Will Cummins. But at the scene of the murder, the stage-driver of the present generation tells his passengers that Darcy was paroled several years ago, after spending thirty years in prison. He may add that Darcy, the ex-convict, is an inert and lifeless creature, married to a paroled woman as lifeless as himself.

Darcy's friends in Union City would not have it appear that their model citizen was a murderer. They protested stoutly, and in the end the tax-payers for thirty years were burdened with the care and keep of the criminal.

As it has already been remarked, murders in Nevada County were common enough; but a murder trial was almost unheard of.

The State tried Collins first. He had no friends, except of the baser sort; and his conviction might make it easier to convict Darcy. Mat Bailey and Mamie Slocum were important witnesses for the State; and Collins himself, poor debauchee though he was, was man enough to clear Mamie of all suspicion. She freely told of her conversation with him when he had recommended the gallantry of gentlemen of the road. And she admitted that she had always been haunted by the suspicion that the highwayman with whom Cummins had grappled might have been Collins, who had so strangely disappeared after the robbery. No; she could not identify him as the man who asked about Cummins' valise. She was not sure about his voice. She was too much frightened to be sure of anything.

As Collins seemed less interested in saving his own worthless life than in establishing the innocence of Mamie Slocum, he was promptly convicted. The judge sentenced him to be hanged on Friday, Feb. 1, 1884.

Sheriff Carter could not see why, if Collins was guilty, Darcy was not. But good souls from Union City showed how exemplary had been the life of their brother since he came among them, and the lawyer whom these good people employed pointed out the shame and disgrace that would be suffered by a worthy family if one bearing the name of Darcy should die upon the scaffold. It is strange that in such cases the lawyers on the other side do not show that the shame and disgrace come with the commission of the crime, and that honest punishment endured for the same is the one means left the criminal to atone for the injury he has done the good name of his family.

There was no doubt as to Darcy's guilt; and he was man enough to have paid the extreme penalty willingly. For thirty years he lived the monotonous round of prison life, becoming more and more like a dumb animal, and paroled at last in his old age little better than an automaton—the qualities of daring, thrift, and religious enthusiasm long since dead and gone.

Throughout the trial of both men, Henry Francis was an interested spectator. The court-room seemed to have a fascination for him, although he was now a rich man with important demands upon his time. It was whispered about that the Pennsylvanians had spent a hundred thousand dollars hunting the criminals down; and some people were fanciful enough to see in Henry Francis the highwaymen's Nemesis. He made a very dignified Nemesis indeed. He looked grave and thoughtful, and his newly acquired wealth lent dignity to his refined countenance.

But it occurred to John Keeler that somehow it appeared as if Francis imagined himself sitting at his own trial. He seemed to show an almost eager interest in the subterfuges and the raising of legal dust by means of which counsel for the defense endeavored to blind the eyes of the jurors. Keeler hardly dared to let his fancy run on to logical conclusions. It seemed too much like condemning a man without giving him a trial. Yet he could not help being haunted by the thought that some thieves are too shrewd to assume the risks of highway robbery. In his own mind this thought constituted the one valid argument against capital punishment. For if common scoundrels are to be executed what severer punishment is left for the more crafty villain? But he could see that a sensitive nature like that of Francis was capable of infinite suffering; and he thought of the words of Scripture, "Verily they have their reward."

"The mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small."

For example, there was Robert Palmer, who after thirty years spent in the gold fields had accumulated considerable treasure. But choosing to dig for gold and to live among adventurers, thieves, and speculators, he had come to distrust human nature. He became so secretive that even at the approach of death, when the kindly French doctor had given him fair warning, he would confide in only one man. Verily, he had his reward.

Incidentally, the three Californians whom he had named as his executors prospered. They may not all be included among the forty-one thieves of this story, but it may not seem unreasonable to suppose that Henry Francis made it worth while for Hintzen and Haggerty to keep quiet. The point is that all three executors prospered—and then died penniless.

Hintzen made so much money over at Forest City that he left for Arizona, where he invested in copper, and lost everything he had. Haggerty, who remained in his store at Moore's Flat, where he had made money rapidly, speculated and lost all, including the savings of a few poor people who had trusted him. Henry Francis speculated in the stock of the famous Comstock mine, in the adjoining State of Nevada, lost the fortune he had wrongfully acquired, and died broken-hearted. It was only six years after Palmer's death that he collapsed, and was taken home to Reedsville, Pennsylvania.

Here, ostensibly the victim of tuberculosis, he lingered a year to taste the bitterness of poverty and wretchedness. Then he died, and suffered the usual eulogy poured out by country ministers.

A charitable author must admit the virtues of his "heavy-villain." The sun rises upon the evil and the good, and rain descends upon the just and the unjust, for the simple reason, no doubt, that no other arrangement would be possible, inasmuch as there are no people who are entirely good and none who are wholly bad. In every man the forces of good and evil are at war.

If Henry Francis yielded to temptation there were extenuating circumstances. In the first place, Robert Palmer's will distinctly stated that everything was left to the judgment of the executors. They were to stand firm and resolute on their own judgment "and take time to settle the concern whether it need one year or twenty years."

Possibly Francis reasoned that investing the old man's money in a certain way would, within a very few years, double the estate, and thus render a service to the heirs. And if at the end of three or four years the event had proved the soundness of his judgment, was it wrong to exercise that judgment in further ventures? The will gave him twenty years. Weren't the executors acting "at all times and under all circumstances to the best of their judgment?" If conscience demurred that Hintzen and Haggerty were left in the dark, so that "their judgment" had come to mean simply the judgment of Henry Francis, had he not proved that judgment good?

He knew that when he had given the heirs to understand that there was no property, he had prevaricated. But had he not heard their pleas with patience, just as the old man had directed? And if Robert Palmer's estate were settled right then, at the end of four years, would the heirs complain of circumstances which had doubled their inheritance? No doubt conscience inquired if Francis was thinking of postponing settlement indefinitely. And no doubt prudence suggested a settlement now when all was going well. But once let the estate slip from his control, and he would become a comparatively poor man; while the twenty-nine heirs might squander their money foolishly.

While he was debating the question, it was only proper to keep the money well invested. And if at the end of the fifth year his securities had shrunken seriously in value, it was natural to wait another year for values to become normal. When the crash came, the injury to his vanity hurt him more than his wounded conscience; that he had learned to soothe, but his pride had never before been humbled. And so it was said that Henry Francis died of a broken heart.

His sister Mary, who nine years before had brought back