Secret Band of Brothers | Page 6

laws of the secret brotherhood. With them, any thing was honesty that would effect their purposes. But to consummate their design, another object must be secured--some innocent person must be implicated and made a scape-goat for, at least, a part of their crimes. This game they understood well, for they had been furnished with abundant means and instructions. It required also deep-seated iniquity of heart, and in this there was no lack, for they were the sublimation of depravity. They must also have time and capital. These were easily provided, as will be seen in the sequel. There was an individual with whom they had become acquainted in Cleaveland, and upon whom suspicion had rested for some time. He was the man fixed upon as their victim. Of course he was not a member of their organized band. "Honour among thieves" forbids the selection of such a one. It was necessary, however, that he should be somewhat of a villain. Here also they exhibited much sagacity in the selection. It now only remained to slip his neck into the noose that was in preparation for themselves. All the instrumentalities being prepared to their liking, they immediately set the infernal machinery in active operation.
The first thing to be done was to change the direction of public opinion as to the real perpetrator. It must be called off from the persons who were now so hotly pursued, and put upon a different scent. The agents were at hand--The Secret Band of Brothers. These "dogs of war" were let loose, and simultaneously the whole pack set up their hideous yell after the poor fellow previously mentioned. Many of them being merchants and holding a respectable relation to society, and most of them being connected with the different honourable professions, their fell purpose was the more easily accomplished. A continual excitement was thus kept up, by breathing forth calumny and denunciation against one who, however guilty of other things, was innocent of the thing laid to his charge. At the same time, the ears of the principal bank-officers were filled with words of extenuation and sympathy toward the two brothers. Their former high respectability was adduced. That they were guilty was not denied, but they had been misled and seduced. Intimations were given that the name of the real villain who had caused their ruin would be given, provided they would ease off in their prosecution already in progress. And then it would be such a glorious thing to secure the prime-mover.
By these fair and seemingly sincere pretensions, they soon kindled relentings in the hearts of the prosecutors. How could it be otherwise? for "they were all honourable men." Several of the individuals who assisted in maturing the plan were men of commanding influence, in the very town where I was bred. I had abundant opportunities to know them. A proposition was finally made through them by the instructions of the officers, that, as the brothers knew their guilt was fully established, it would have a tendency to mitigate their sentence, if they would expose the head man, by whose knavery many extensive property-holders were threatened with total bankruptcy. This was the precise position at which the secret band of brothers had been aiming. The next step was to secure, if possible, the younger brother as "state's evidence" against the appointed victim of Cleaveland notoriety, whom, for the sake of convenience, I will designate by his name, Taylor.
He was a man of extraordinary abilities and gentlemanly deportment. He and the two brothers were mutual acquaintances. They had been accomplices, no doubt, in many a deed of darkness. But as "the devil should have his due," I am bound to exculpate him from any participation in the alleged crime. That he was innocent in this affair I have the fullest evidence. I was solicited by the pettifogger, (I will not say lawyer,) for the brothers, to take a bribe for perjury, and swear poor Taylor guilty of giving me five hundred dollars of counterfeit money, which money he would place in my hands. Of this fellow, I will speak in another chapter. The younger brother was now to declare himself and brother as having been seduced by Taylor. It was to be done without the apparent knowledge of the elder brother, whom we will hereafter call Colonel Brown. It was to be communicated to one of the officers, with a solicitation to keep it a secret from the colonel. He also had an appointed part to play. The character he was to sustain in this drama of well-concocted treachery, I will next present.
CHAPTER III.
The colonel's physician advised him to take medicine, to reduce his system, and give him the appearance of one rapidly sinking under a pulmonary affection. He consented, as such a plan was