Thus was I doomed to stand in the same prisoners’ dock with him, my case tightly fastened to his with legal thongs,--the innocent and the guilty to stand or fall together! What an unequal fight, what an injustice, was dealt me!
In my declining years I often wonder, if there be a Supreme Ruler,--and I believe there is,--whether, on the Judgment Day, there’ll not be an awful reckoning for those who were so unjustly against me in my vain battle to establish my innocence.
Realizing how matters were going, I asked Mr. Lynde to retain the services of Mr. Woodward, and as I bade him good-night at the jail, we’d decided to call to our aid also, ex-Judge Cushion and John M. Way, both of whom I knew very well. The bail in my case was fixed at fifteen thousand dollars, and in Shinburn’s, five thousand more. I hoped to be out into the world again, before many hours, no matter what the future held for me beyond the grand jury. As I meditated over the release of Cummings and the action of the magistrate, I actually would not have been surprised if Shinburn had been discharged, while I, alone, was held to an accounting.
While I had lain in jail, Herbert Bellows began a suit in tort in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, and, attaching my property, sacrificed it at a forced sale. Though the trial of the suit was never had, I was stripped of my property and left financially helpless, save for the loyalty of my friends. Notwithstanding this lack of means, these friends, not a few of them my creditors, came to my assistance, and I was admitted to bail. In the meantime the grand jury handed down a joint indictment against Shinburn and myself, and the case was placed on the calendar of the October term of the Cheshire County Court.
It was toward the middle of October that Shinburn and I were brought to trial, in the meantime the grand jury having presented indictments against us, but that didn’t seem to affect me greatly, for the reason that I was becoming more hopeful every day. Having been admitted to bail and afforded an opportunity to be among my friends once more, the despondency which attacked me in jail had given way to a feeling of almost certainty that I would be declared not guilty. My attorneys, the day before the trial, having examined all of our witnesses, from Stoneham and Boston, were even more sanguine than I. John M. Way told me that the prosecution could no more convict me than it could walk on air. In fact, he said there wasn’t “a peg to hang a hat on.” And as to Shinburn, though he had not been able to get bail, his counsel said there would be no trouble in proving an alibi for him. If Shinburn, who, I had no doubt, was guilty, could hope to escape, how much more reason was there for me to expect a verdict of acquittal.