a legal reason. I will tell you exactly what you must say. The phrases will be strange to you, but you must get them off by heart. Can you manage that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right. I could write it down for you. . . .”
“Memory will serve.”
“Find Thomas Hughes or John C. Burgner—either will do—and say that you wish to take an oath that the prisoners Barbara Stewart, Blackston Stewart, and Frankie Silver have been imprisoned without the legal forms of trial and without the parties having it in their power to confront their accusers before any legal tribunal.”
He made me say it twice more, and then he said, “They’ll let my family go, then?”
“No. The magistrates will then order a hearing with witnesses to testify, just like a trial. Then the magistrates will determine if there is enough evidence to keep the accused persons in jail. Or they may release them on bond. Do you understand?”
“Well enough,” said Stewart. “Say those legal words again.”
I drilled him on the form of the request until I was sure that he had committed the phrases to memory. I then gave him directions to John Burgner’s house and wished him well.
Isaiah Stewart thanked me gravely, and before he turned to go, he said, “Are you a lawyer, sir?”
“I am,” I said, “but I may not represent you in this matter. As the clerk of Superior Court, my part in the case is already assigned. I will be present at the trial as the record keeper, and to advise the members of counsel on points of law. Take heart, though! There are half a dozen qualified attorneys in this town, with much more trial experience than I have. I am sure you will find a good one to take the case. The habeas corpus matter can be handled by any lawyer worthy of the name.”
He nodded. “I’ll see about that hearing now.”
North Carolina—Burke County Whereas Isaiah Stewart hath complained to us, John C. Burgner and Thomas Hughes, two of the Acting Justices of the Peace in and for the county of Burke aforesaid, that Barbara Stuart, Frankey Silver, and Blackstone Stuart have been suspected of having committed a murder on the body of one Charles Silver, and whereas it has been made to appear on oath of the said Isaiah Stuart that the said defendants have been committed to the common Jail of the County without the parties having it in their power of confronting their accusers before any legal tribunal:
These are therefore to command you, the Sheriff of Burke County or any other lawful officer of said county, to arrest the bodies of Barbary Stuart, Frankey Silver, and Blackston Stuart, and them safely
keep so that you have them before us at Morgan within the time prescribed by law, then and there to answer the charge and to be further delt with as the law directs. Herein fail not at your peril. Given from under our hands and seal, this 13th day of January, A.D. 1832.
Thomas Hughes, J.P. John C. Burgner, J.P.
I returned the document to Will Butler. “Poor Tom Hughes. His command of the language leaves much to be desired, but he’s a good man for all that.”
Butler tapped the writ. “I see your hand in this, my learned friend.”
“Surely I spell better than that, Will,” I said, smiling.
“ Isaiah Stewart doth make oath that his family has been denied the right to face their accusers! Those are fine ten-shilling words to come out of the mouth of a backwoodsman! Why, you could engrave on the head of a pin all that fellow knows about the law. I’m thinking that someone put him up to it.”
“Some good Samaritan, perhaps,” I said. “Stewart is within his rights in this. Surely you don’t object to a hearing.”
I watched my breath make mist in the air between us. Will Butler had waylaid me on the street near the Presbyterian church. I had been admiring a churchyard snow scene of redberry bushes flanked by snow-laden boughs, and thinking that even the dead had their seasonal finery, when Butler hailed me to discuss his newfound fame as the keeper of the most notorious murderess since the Lady Macbeth.
Will Butler had been considering my question. “Object to a hearing? Not I. Tongues are already wagging about this case. Perhaps a dose of the facts would put the matter to rest. Besides, the magistrates may grant bail to some of the prisoners anyhow. The boy is mighty young. I suppose I wouldn’t