The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863, page 39 by Various Authors
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gave, as an excuse for accepting the bribe, his conviction that Mrs. Dawsey could not be found guilty on his testimony. After his arrest he was confined in the same jail with the 'retired' schoolmistress.
The second trial was approaching; but, late on the night preceding the sitting of the court, the jailer's house--which adjoined and communicated with the prison--was forcibly entered by four armed men disguised as negroes. They bound and gagged the jailer, his wife, and two female servants, and, seizing the keys, entered the jail, and carried Mulock off by force. The keeper heard a desperate struggle, and it was supposed Mulock was foully dealt by. The footprints of four men were the next morning detected leading to a spot on the bank of the river, where a boat appeared to have been moored; but there all traces were lost, and the overseer's fate is still shrouded in mystery.
Mrs. Dawsey, whose cell adjoined Mulock's, was not disturbed, but public suspicion connected her husband with the affair. There was, however, no evidence against him, and he went 'unwhipped of justice.'
The lady was arraigned for trial on the following day, but, no witnesses appearing against her, she was--after a tedious confinement of ten months--set at liberty. Thus, at last, she achieved 'a plantation and a rich planter;' but her darling object in life--to lead and shine in society, for which her education and character peculiarly fitted her--she missed. With the exception of her brutal husband, an ignorant overseer, and a superannuated 'schulemarm,' imported from the North, she has no associates. Society has built up a wall about her, and, with the brand of Cain on her forehead, she is going through the world.
Larkin, after breaking off his connection with his 'respectable associates,' descended from trading in human cattle, to trafficking in fourfooted beasts, and all manner of horned animals. Joe offered him an interest in his business; but the negro-trader had too long led a roving life to be content with