The Prodigal Judge

Extract: CHAPTER XXXV. A CRISIS AT THE COURT-HOUSE In that bare upper room they had shared, the judge, crushed and broken, watched beside the bed on which the dead man lay; unconscious of the flight of time he sat with his head bowed in his hands, having scarcely altered his position since he begged those who carried Mahaffy up the narrow stairs to leave him alone with his friend. He was living over the past. He recalled his first meeting with Mahaffy in the stuffy cabin of the small river packet from which they had later gone ashore at Pleasantville; he thanked God that it had been given him to see beneath Solomon's forbidding exterior and into that starved heart He reviewed each phase of the almost insensible growth of their intimacy; he remembered Mahaffy's fine true loyalty at the time of his arrest-he thought of Damon and Pythias-Mahaffy had reached the heights of a sublime devotion; he could only feel enobled that he had inspired it. At last the dusk of twilight invaded the room. He lighted the candles on the chimneypiece, then he resumed his seat and his former attitude. Suddenly he became aware of a small hand that was resting on his arm and glanced up; Hannibal had stolen quietly into the room. The boy pointed to the still figure on the bed. "Judge, what makes Mr. Mahaffy lie so quiet-is he dead?" he asked in a whisper. "Yes, dear lad," began the judge in a shaking voice as he drew Hannibal toward him, "your friend and mine is dead-we have lost him." He lifted the boy into his lap, and Hannibal pressed a tear-stained face against the judge's shoulder. "How did you get here?" the judge questioned gently.

Vaughan or Vaughn Kester (September 12, 1869 - July 4, 1911) was an American novelist and journalist. He was the elder brother of dramatist and author Paul Kester (1870-1933). His style and topics were influenced by his travels through western and southern U.S., and by his mother’s cousin William Dean Howells. His novel The Manager of the B & A, was made into a film in 1916 directed by J.P. McGowan, with Leo Maloney and Helen Holmes, reissued in 1921 as The Man from Medicine Hat. He married Jessie B. Jennings from Mount Vernon, Ohio on August 31, 1898. They had no children. In 1902, with his brother, he purchased and renovated Woodlawn Plantation. From 1907, he lived at Gunston Hall, where he wrote The Prodigal Judge, and where he died. A memorial in his honor was placed by his mother in Pohick Church, which had at one time been the parish church of Gunston Hall.