Westover of Wanalah: A story of love and life in Old VirginiaEggleston, George Cary
General
Westover of Wanalah: A story of love and life in Old Virginia
Eggleston, George Cary
Virginia -- Fiction
Then somebody remembered that the intruder had escaped and some one
else ventured the suggestion that steps ought to be taken to apprehend
him. To that end Monsieur Le Voiser was summoned from his private
residence in the next street. After all the girls who personally knew
Boyd Westover, and all those who had attended his course of lectures
had borne witness that the intruder was unmistakably he, Monsieur
proceeded to set the machinery of the law in motion, with the results
already set forth.
When Boyd, with Jack Towns as his counsel, presented himself before the
magistrate, there was a group of Monsieur Le Voiser's pupils there,
whom Jack Towns, borrowing his text from the circus posters, called "A
bevy of beauty and galaxy of grace." They were there under command of
their matron to testify to the facts of the burglary and the identity
of the burglar, which they one and all did with so much confidence that
Jack Towns found it impossible to shake their beliefs in the smallest
degree.
Sam Anderson was there too, very reluctantly indeed and under
compulsion of a subpœna. The Commonwealth's Attorney had somehow
learned of his encounter with Westover near the scene of the burglary
under what appeared to be suspicious circumstances. The hotel clerk was
present to testify concerning the hour and circumstances of Westover's
return to the hotel on the night before.
To meet all this array of testimony, Boyd Westover had no single
witness of any kind. And if there had been any such Jack Towns would
not have put him on the stand. It was clear that the accused young man
must be committed in any case to await the action of the Grand Jury,
and Jack Towns was much too shrewd a lawyer to waste strength--if he
had had any strength--in this preliminary hearing. He devoted himself
instead to the task of getting the bail fixed at as low a sum as
possible. When he pleaded that his client was well known to be a
gentleman of the best family connections and the most scrupulous honor,
a man to whom the commission of such a crime was utterly impossible,
the magistrate reminded him that the witnesses were young gentlewomen
of equally good families, in whom perjury was not even conceivable;
that their number was too great and their testimony too positive to
leave room for the theory of possible mistake; and finally that the
very fact of Boyd Westover's high place in life rendered any crime on
his part especially heinous. He felt bound, he said, to fix bail at
five thousand dollars--a very great sum in those days.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account