client and say a few quiet words. Then he smiled reassuringly and leaned back to straighten his silk cravat.
I wonder what she has told him of her situation,I thought. And can he possibly imagine what her life was like?And if he cannot, how on earth can he defend her? I abandoned this foolish notion at once, for who, I wondered, could truly understand the harsh frontier life that had been the prisoner’s existence and yet himself be an able lawyer capable of defending her in a proper court? For some reason a name leaped unbidden to my mind, to be banished by me as quickly as I thought it: Andrew Jackson.
At that moment Constable Pearson threw open the doors to the court, and a seething crowd pushed past him, elbowing one another for the best positions and making loud and uncouth comments about the proceedings. I saw a grim-faced Isaiah Stewart shepherding his wife and sons to a place on the side of the courtroom, a place where the defendant could see them, although they were not near enough to converse. I saw her cast a stricken look at her mother, but I could not tell what emotion was conveyed in the returned gaze.
At last Judge Donnell took his place at the bench and called the court to order.
“Frances Stewart Silver.”
The defendant stood up, and I fancied that she swayed for a moment before steadying herself on the edge of the table. Nicholas Woodfin placed a gentle hand on her arm and held her attention with a calm, steady stare, much as one might use to quiet a frightened mare. She took a deep breath and nodded slightly, and together they approached the bar.
Judge Donnell consulted the indictment that Mr. Alexander had carefully copied out for him. It was substantially the same document that the prosecutor had prepared for the grand jury hearing ten days earlier, but in this version the names of Barbara and Blackston Stewart were omitted, because the grand jury had not seen fit to bind them over for trial. Judge Donnell read Mr. Alexander’s carefully wrought document, his lips moving soundlessly through the phrases, which consisted of but a single tortuous sentence, so long and intricate as to tax the orative powers of even the ablest judge. After a few more moments’ contemplation, he began to read the document aloud in a steady drone, marked only by the ripple of his Scots brogue on a word here and there.
“State of North Carolina. Burke County. Superior Court of Law. Spring Term 1832. The jurors for the State upon their oath do present that Frances Stewart of said county, not having the fear of God before her eyes, but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil, on the twenty-second day of December in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty-one, with force and arms in the County of Burke aforesaid, in and upon one Charles Silver in the peace of God and of the State, then and there being feloniously, wilfully, and of malice aforethought did make an assault; and that the said Frances Silver with a certain axe of the value of six pence, which the said Frances Silver in both hands of her, the said Frances Silver then and there had and held to, against, and upon the said Charles Silver, then and there feloniously, wilfully, and of her malice aforethought did cast and throw; and that the said Frances Silver with the axe aforesaid so cast and thrown, as aforesaid, the said Charles Silver in and upon the head of him, the said Charles Silver, then and there feloniously, wilfully, and of her malice aforethought with the axe aforesaid, so as aforesaid by the said Frances Silver cast and thrown, in and upon the head of him, the said Charles Silver one mortal wound of the length of three inches and of the depth of one inch; of which said mortal wound he, the said Charles Silver, then and there instantly died; and so the grand jurors aforesaid, upon their oath aforesaid, do say that the said Frances Silver, him, the said Charles Silver, in manner and form aforesaid feloniously, wilfully, and of her malice aforethought did kill and murder against the peace and dignity of the State.”
He paused for a moment while the thunder of his final words echoed in the murmurs of the spectators. What a talent for rigmarole Mr. Alexander has got, I was thinking.