Summerfield Part 8

"I don't b'lieve the Square will try 'im. I never could git a hearin'

of 'im. He's stiff as steelyards, and short as pie-crust since he got in office. But mebby he'll knuckle a little to you. If he will, put Sculpin through a course of sprouts, and larn 'im better'n to hook log-chains. But I'm sorry I know anything about it; _I_ don't want to go to court," said Troffater, with a mysterious elongation of his little monkey face, and significant rollings and crossings of his black and blue eyes.

"But what do you know, Troffater?" asked Bogie, with new light animating his anxious eye and cheek. "What do you know? There's somethin' to help me on a bit, I guess."

"O, I'm sorry I spoke," said Troffater, and spit through his teeth. "I don't know nothin' about it. I don't want to go afore Fabens, and be obleeged to look 'im in the face. I wish I'd never seen Sculpin, nor his little thievin' capers."

"Don't bother me, now," said Bogle. "If ye know anything--and I bleeve ye dew--out with it, and be my witness. I'm afraid it'll give me a sweat to beat 'im arter all. Out with it, Tilly."

"O, go long! go long!" said Troffater. "I hope you'll lick the rascal.

He's guilty's a dog. But don't ax _me_, now, what _I_ know! I wouldn't go afore Fabens for a fat turkey, I wouldn't. And then agin, why should I want to hurt Sculpin, or lay a straw in his way? Mebby he'll dew better, sense the trap liked to ketch 'im; and I'm sure I don't want to expose him."

"But tell me what you know, if you stay away from court," said Bogle.

"Tell me, and relieve my mind."

"Go long, I say, and don't ax me agin, for I don't know nothin'--that I'd like to tell in court."

"I shall suppeeny you!" cried Bogle, departing in a huff.

"Don't ye dew it, Bogle! O, don't ye dew it for all the world, Bogle!

I shall hev a caniption fit if ye dew!" shouted Troffater after him.

The next day Bogle came before the justice with evidence against Sculpin, which Fabens regretted to believe was but too well founded; and he issued a warrant, and a week from that day the action was brought to trial.

The crowd of spectators was large, and the interest felt by all, at least, curious and wakeful. Squire Fabens took his magisterial seat with an air of unaffected gravity, glanced around the a.s.sembly with a mild, intelligent eye, and presented before them a n.o.ble form and reverend mien, which inspired the virtuous, with new admiration for goodness, and filled the vicious with secret remorse and apparent shame for the evil of their doings.

Cicero Bray, Esq., appeared as counsel for the plaintiff, and C. Fox Faddle, Esq., was counsel for the prisoner.

Lawyer Bray was a mountainous man, about thirty-five years old; and he had impudence ingrained with his brawny meat and muscles, and his tongue, let loose, would run like a mill-stream. His head rose a little above his ears, and was huge of girth in a horizontal measure.

His hair was a sort of wolf's gray, was clipped all over within an inch of his head, and stood up like the bristles on a wild boar's back. His brows were bushy, and jutted, roof-like, over his deeply-sunken eyes; his nose was bluff as a bull-dog's; his cheek-bones were rough and high; his eyes were wide-set; his mouth was cut square across almost from ear to ear; his chin was square and ma.s.sy; he had an Adam's apple as large as a gilly-flower ripening on his throat; his hands were large and bony, and his voice "grated harsh thunder," as Milton said of the gates of h.e.l.l.

Lawyer Bray was prompt and saucy in court, and often won his case in other towns by the thunder of his voice and the force of his action while on the floor. He could always read an abundance of law to sustain any point he argued, although the law quoted might not be found written in the book. He was a capital shot, and kept a pair of the fleetest hounds, and often hauled in his s.h.i.+ngle and hunted week in and week out, leaving business to follow suit. He made light of religious and sacred things; he could curse the sky when it thundered, and swear the lights blue with the boldest voluble tongue; and yet he would appeal to G.o.d to judge him in a plea, and silence, and exclude a witness for any unpopular religious belief. He rose to an extensive business in the towns about, at last; and is quoted at this day, for some wild gale of a speech, or some saucy joke, or strange adventure.

Lawyer Faddle was equally original. He was as tall as Bray, whenever he straightened up in an animated speech; but his long form commonly bent over, and described a segment of a rainbow. His head was small, and his hair long and thin, and light and s.h.i.+ny as flax; his eyes were almost white, and were set obliquely; his nose was long, aquiline, and pinched together in the nostrils; his teeth were long and broad, and those above shut over upon his lower lip and kept it in a constant chafe. His voice was clear enough, and it never failed in a speech; but it seemed to reside in his little thirsty throat, and it piped like a killdeer's in its proudest swell.

Lawyer Faddle excited some mirth for his originalities, and more contempt for his vices among the farmers of Summerfield. The opinion of the town at that time may be given in the language of Uncle Walter, who declared he was "hollow and foul as a sooty stove-pipe."

Lawyer Faddle however succeeded in creating an extensive business in time, though most of his cases an honorable lawyer would have scorned; and he reared a large family, and wanted to figure in later times as one of the aristocracy of Summerfield.

Cicero Bray opened the case by a lengthened speech of very ambitious eloquence, paying several unfelt compliments to the 'justice' and 'wisdom' of the 'worthy magistrate;' while he glanced through the course of the trial, with an air and tone of triumph, stating in thunder what he should undertake to sustain in evidence; and after a most exhausting peroration, he hauled in his ragged voice, and arrested its rumbling echoes, and gave way for a brief remark from the counsel for the prisoner. A son of the plaintiff, Welcome Bogle, was then introduced to the stand, and testified that his father had owned a log-chain with the initials of his name, "S. B." marked on one of the hooks; and the chain in court being shown him, he said with audible and honest emphasis, "Yes, that's the article." He was cross-examined, with considerable tact and much severity by C. Fox Faddle, Esq.; but he stood the trial with remarkable composure and consistency, making no variation of the facts testified, although he gave them in different connections and words.

'Becca Ann t.e.e.zle was next introduced. She had again and again declared she was not afraid of a lawyer, and on this occasion her words proved true. Without the slightest diffidence, but with a boldness rather which encouraged the other witnesses, and with a toss of the head that Lawyer Faddle did not like, she said, "she had been out in the woods pasture picking blackberries, and saw Mr. Sculpin pa.s.s that way from the direction of Mr. Bogle's barn, with a chain on his back."

When cross-examined, she stated that "it was slung over his right shoulder, and under his left arm, and it was _not_ a trace chain, nor a halter chain, nor a breast chain, as Mr. C. Fox Faddle endeavored to have it appear, but a log-chain; yes, _sir_, a log chain, for I saw it with my own eyes."

"Then you sometimes see with eyes not your own, do you, Miss t.e.e.zle?"

said Lawyer Faddle with a comical leer, and a peculiar pipe of that killdeer voice.

"Yes, I take owl's eyes when I want to look at a lawyer."

"Why do you do that, Miss t.e.e.zle? what can owls see that you cannot see with your _own_ eyes, Miss t.e.e.zle?" asked the lawyer, attempting to turn the laugh back from himself upon her.

"They can see _low fowl_ creatures in the dark," replied the blooming maiden.

"Enough of this," said the lawyer; "and if Miss Rebecca Ann saw these things with her own eyes, can she name any circ.u.mstances? Did you notice Mr. Sculpin very particularly? Did he seem confused and agitated when you met him? or was he calm,--was he possessed?"

"He was _possessed_--at least of the chain."

"Indeed, Miss t.e.e.zle, and you are certain of this; and now can you tell me if it was when you were going _after_ the berries, that you saw him; or _after_ you had picked them, and had started _after_ home?"

"It was _after_ we had been _after_ the berries, and _after_ we had started _after_ home."

"Yes; and did you notice the _gait_ in which he moved along; notice it with your own eyes, Rebecca?"

"He was in the _gate_ of the woods pasture south of Mr. Bogle's when we saw him last."

"Yes, and you are so wise and discerning, you can tell whether his course across the field, was straight or crooked?"

"Crooked, sir."

"About how crooked? can you tell this court, Miss t.e.e.zle?"

"Crooked as your questions, sir," the confident girl replied; and though the lawyer appealed to the court several times to "silence the insolence" of this witness before she was through; the court protected the witness and rebuked the lawyer for impertinent questions, and the insolence he charged upon her.

Nancy Nimblet was called, and she testified that "She was with 'Becca Ann t.e.e.zle, on the time specified, and she remembered it too, as if it was yesterday; and the prisoner came from the direction of the complainant's barn, with a log-chain round him, over his right shoulder, and under his left arm." Lawyer Faddle declining her cross-examination, Adonijah Nixon was called. He testified that Mr.

Bogle and he were second cousins. Cicero Bray objected to this as not relevant; C. Fox Faddle insisted that it was relevant, and after some arguing and sparring, the justice ruled it out. Then Mr. Nixon said, "on Simon's having expressed to me a suspicion that Jared had taken the chain, I went with him to Jared's house and found the chain which you see before you."

Seneca Waldron and Crispus Flaxman were called; but their evidence was challenged and ruled out for non-age.

G. W. Pugg was called, and no one answered. G. W. _Pugg_, repeated the magistrate, slighting the initials and laying most emphasis on the name. No one answered; but two persons in the corner, a father and son, exchanged significant glances and looked very acute and wise. The Squire raised his voice, and let it fall like an auctioneer's hammer on the name.

"G. W. _Pugg_--is Mr. _Pugg_ in the room?"

At that imperative question, the gray-skirted, bushy-headed, grog-bruising hunter of a father in the corner, rose and said, "Call 'im George _Was.h.i.+ntun_, then I guess he'll c.u.m!"

"_George_ WAs.h.i.+NGTON PUGG; will you come and testify?" said the Squire with an emphasis on all the names, but rising and fairly hammering the last; when a greedy-eyed, brockle-faced, over-grown blade of seventeen opened up like a flax-brake, and loped forward over chairs and benches, responding in a houndish flat-and-treble voice, "_I_ reckon I'll _doo't_! O yis, I reckon I _will_, Square Fabens."

The business of the court then proceeded, and when his evidence was taken, Tilly Troffater mounted the stand, with an affected hesitancy, and a genuine restlessness of his little earthen eyes; eager to indulge his meddlesome humor, anxious for revenge upon, he little cared whom, and yet awed to a look of shuffling shame, by the commanding mien of the justice. Clambering to his place, he was questioned by the court.

"Well, friend Troffater, what do you know of the action pending?"

"I telled Bogle I was sorry _I_ knew anything for I didn't want to come to court," said the witness.

"But, what do you know, Mr. Troffater, that would tend to convict the prisoner? Tell us _that_," said the court.

"I don't want to tell," said the witness. "Let the critter go clear, for all me. I wouldn't lay a straw afore im. Mebby that's the last o'

his thievin' capers. If 'tis, _I_ wouldn't tell what I know for all on airth."

"You do know something, Mr. Troffater," interrupted Cicero Bray, Esq., obstreperously; "you know something, upon which we greatly depend to convict the prisoner, and vindicate the majesty of law, and I insist upon your evidence, sir."