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 court-room 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.”