the case cannot be conducted so favourably for him now, when the public mind is so excited."

“I understand you exactly," responded Mrs. Armstrong, "and shall agree to any decision you make. The case is in your hands, and you will conduct it as you think best."

"Another thing too," added Lincoln, "I need more time to unravel the affair. I want to produce evidence that shall vindicate William to the satisfaction of every reasonable man."

Lincoln secured the postponement of the trial until the following spring; and he spent much time, in the interval, in tracing evidence, labouring as assiduously to pay his old debt of gratitude as he would have done under the offer of a fee of five thousand dollars.

The time for the trial arrived, and it drew together a crowd of interested people, nor were they under so much excitement as they were when the case was postponed. The "sober second thought" had moderated their feelings, and they were in a better frame of mind to judge impartially.

The witnesses for the State were introduced; some to testify of Armstrong's previous vicious character, and others to relate what they saw of the affair on the night of the murder. His accuser testified in the most positive manner that he saw him make the dreadful thrust that felled his victim.

"Could there be no mistake in regard to the person who struck the blow?" asked the counsel for the defence.

"None at all: I am confident of that," replied the witness.

"What time in the evening was it?"

"Between ten and eleven o'clock."

Well, about how far between? Was it quarter-past

ten or half-past ten o'clock, or still later?

exact, if you please."

Be more

"I should think it might have been about half-past ten o'clock," answered the witness.

"And you are confident that you saw the prisoner at the bar give the blow? Be particular in your testimony, and remember that you are under oath."

"I am; there can be no mistake about it."

"Yes; but the moon was shining brightly."

Then it was not very dark, as there was a

moon?"

'No; the moon made it light enough for me to see the whole affair."

"Be particular on this point. Do I understand you to say that the murder was committed about half-past ten o'clock, and that the moon was shining brightly at the time?"

"Yes, that is what I testify."

His principal accuser was thus positive in his testimony, and the sagacious attorney saw enough therein to destroy his evidence.

After the witnesses for the State had been called, the defence introduced a few, to show that young Armstrong had borne a better character than some of the witnesses gave him, and also that his accuser had been his personal enemy, while the murdered young man was his personal friend.

The counsel for the Commonwealth considered that the evidence was too strong against Armstrong to admit of a reasonable doubt of his guilt; therefore, his plea was short and formal.

All eyes were now turned to Lincoln. What could he say for the accused, in the face of such testimony?

Few saw any possible chance for Armstrong to escape : his condemnation was sure.

Mr. Lincoln rose, while a deeply impressive stillness reigned throughout the court-room. The prisoner sat with a worried, despairing look, such as he had worn ever since his arrest. When he was led into the courtroom a most melancholy expression sat upon his brow, as if he were forsaken by every friend, and the evidence presented was not suited to produce a change for the better.

His counsel proceeded to review the testimony, and called attention particularly to the discrepancies in the statements of the principal witness. What had seemed to the multitude as plain, truthful statements he showed to be wholly inconsistent with other parts of the testimony, indicating a plot against an innocent man. Then, raising his clear, full voice to a higher key, and lifting his long, wiry right arm above his head, as if about to annihilate his client's accuser, he exclaimed: "And he testifies that the moon was shining brightly when the deed was perpetrated, between the hours of ten and eleven o'clock, when the moon did not appear on that night, as your Honour's almanac will show, until an hour or more later, and consequently the whole story is a fabrication."

The audience were carried by this sudden overthrow of the accuser's testimony, and they were now as bitter against the principal witness as they were before against the accused.

Lincoln continued in a strain of singular eloquence, portraying the loneliness and sorrow of the widowed mother, whose husband, long since gathered to his fathers, and his good companion with the silver locks, welcomed a strange and penniless boy to their humble abode, dividing their scanty store with him, and, pausing,

and exhibiting much emotion-" that boy stands before you now pleading for the life of his benefactor's son-the staff of the widow's declining years." The effect was electric; and eyes unused to weep shed tears as rain. With unmistakable expressions of honest sympathy around him Lincoln closed his remarkable plea with the words, "If justice is done, as I believe it will be, before the sun sets, it will shine upon my client a free man."

The jury returned to the court-room, after thirty minutes of retirement, with the verdict of "Not Guilty." Turning to his client Lincoln said, "It is not sundown, and you are free!"

A shout of joy went up from the crowded assembly; and the aged mother, who had retired when the case was given to the jury, was brought in with tears of gratitude streaming down her cheeks, to receive her acquitted boy, and thank her noble benefactor for his successful effort.

"Where is Mr. Lincoln?" she asked. And from her saved boy she pressed her way through the crowd to him, and seizing his hand convulsively attempted to express her gratitude, but utterance was impossible. Tears only told how full her heart was. Lincoln answered only with tears for a few moments. At length, however, controlling his feelings, he said,—

"Aunt Hannah, what did I tell you? I pray to God that William may be a good boy hereafter-that this lesson may prove in the end a good lesson to him and to all,"

Subsequently, Lincoln went to see her at her home, when she pressed him to take pay for his services.

"Why, Aunt Hannah, I sha'n't take a cent of yours -never. Anything I can do for you I will do willingly, and without any charge."

Months after this Lincoln heard that some men

were trying to defraud her of land, and he wrote to her:

"Aunt Hannah, they can't have your land. Let them try it in the Circuit Court, and then you appeal it; bring it to the Supreme Court, and Herndon and I will attend to it for nothing."

This William Armstrong, whom Lincoln saved from the gallows, enlisted in the Union army, in response to Abraham Lincoln's first call for seventy-five thousand volunteers. Two years later his mother wrote to President Lincoln that she wanted her boy. She did not speak of any disability, only said that she wanted him. But that was enough for Mr. Lincoln, who had not yet fully paid his old debt of gratitude to his early benefactress, as he thought. He ordered the discharge of her son, and wrote the following brief epistle to her with his own hand :

"September 1863.

"MRS. HANNAH ARMSTRONG,-I have just ordered the discharge of your boy William, as you say, now at Louisville, Ky."

A lawyer was associated with Lincoln in this case, Mr. Walker, and he says of his plea :

"At first he spoke slowly, and carefully reviewed the whole testimony,-picked it all to pieces, and showed that the man had not received his wounds at the place or time named by the witnesses, but afterwards, and at the hands of some one else. .. He skilfully untied here and there a knot, and loosened here and there a peg, until, fairly getting warmed up, he raised himself in his full power, and shook the arguments of his opponents from him as if they were cobwebs. ... The last fifteen minutes of his speech