AYOT ST. LAWRENCE, 14TH JULY 1910.
POSTSCRIPT.—Since the above was written the Lord Chamberlain has made an attempt to evade his responsibility and perhaps to postpone his doom by appointing an advisory committee, unknown to the law, on which he will presumably throw any odium that may attach to refusals of licences in the future. This strange and lawless body will hardly reassure our moralists, who object much more to the plays he licenses than to those he suppresses, and are therefore unmoved by his plea that his refusals are few and far between. It consists of two eminent actors (one retired), an Oxford professor of literature, and two eminent barristers. As their assembly is neither created by statute nor sanctioned by custom, it is difficult to know what to call it until it advises the Lord Chamberlain to deprive some author of his means of livelihood, when it will, I presume, become a conspiracy, and be indictable accordingly; unless, indeed, it can persuade the Courts to recognize it as a new Estate of the Realm, created by the Lord Chamberlain. This constitutional position is so questionable that I strongly advise the members to resign promptly before the Lord Chamberlain gets them into trouble.
THE SHEWING-UP OF BLANCO POSNET
A number of women are sitting working together in a big room not unlike an old English tithe barn in its timbered construction, but with windows high up next the roof. It is furnished as a courthouse, with the floor raised next the walls, and on this raised flooring a seat for the Sheriff, a rough jury box on his right, and a bar to put prisoners to on his left. In the well in the middle is a table with benches round it. A few other benches are in disorder round the room. The autumn sun is shining warmly through the windows and the open door. The women, whose dress and speech are those of pioneers of civilisation in a territory of the United States of America, are seated round the table and on the benches, shucking nuts. The conversation is at its height.
BABSY LOTTIE HANNAH [elderly and wise] I dont say it’s right to kill a man. In a place like this, where every man has to have a revolver, and where theres so much to try people’s tempers, the men get to be a deal too free with one another in the way of shooting. God knows it’s hard enough to have to bring a boy into the world and nurse him up to be a man only to have him brought home to you on a shutter, perhaps for nothing, or only just to shew that the man that killed him wasn’t afraid of him. But men are like children when they get a gun in their hands: theyre not content til theyve used it on somebody. JESSIE LOTTIE. I wish we could get more civilized. I don’t like all this lynching and shooting. I don’t believe any of us like it, if the truth were known. BABSY. Our Sheriff is a real strong man. You want a strong man for a rough lot like our people here. He aint afraid to shoot and he aint afraid to hang. Lucky for us quiet ones, too. JESSIE. Oh, don’t talk to me. I know what men are. Of course he aint afraid to shoot and he aint afraid to hang. Wheres the risk in that with the law on his side and the whole crowd at his back longing for the lynching as if it was a spree? Would one of them own to it or let him own to it if they lynched the wrong man? Not them. What they call justice in this place is nothing but a breaking out of the devil thats in all of us. What I want to see is a Sheriff that aint afraid not to shoot and not to hang. EMMA BABSY [incensed] Oh, well! if people are going to take the part of horse-thieves against the Sheriff—! JESSIE. Who’s taking the part of horse-thieves against the Sheriff? BABSY. You are. Waitle your own horse is stolen, and youll know better. I had an uncle that died of thirst in the sage brush because a negro stole his horse. But they caught him and burned him; and serve him right, too. EMMA. I have known that a child was born crooked because its mother had to do a horse’s work that was stolen. BABSY. There! You hear that? I say stealing a horse is ten times worse than killing a man. And if the Vigilance Committee ever gets hold of you, youd better have killed twenty men than as much as stole a saddle or bridle, much less a horse. [Elder Daniels comes in.] ELDER DANIELS. Sorry to disturb you, ladies; but the Vigilance Committee has taken a prisoner; and they want the room to try him in. JESSIE. But they cant try him til Sheriff Kemp comes back from the wharf. ELDER DANIELS. Yes; but we have to keep the prisoner here til he comes. BABSY. What do you want to put him here for? Cant you tie him up in the Sheriff’s stable? ELDER DANIELS. He has a soul to be saved, almost like the rest of us. I am bound to try to put some religion into him before he goes into his Maker’s presence after the trial. HANNAH. What has he done, Mr Daniels? ELDER DANIELS. Stole a horse. BABSY. And are we to be turned out of the town hall for a horse-thief? Aint a stable good enough for his religion? ELDER DANIELS. It may be good enough for his, Babsy; but, by your leave, it is not good enough for mine. While I am Elder here, I shall umbly endeavour to keep up the dignity of Him I serve to the best of my small ability. So I must ask you to be good enough to clear out. Allow me. [He takes the sack of husks and put it out of the way against the panels of the jury box]. THE WOMEN [murmuring] Thats always the way. Just as we’d settled down to work. What harm are we doing? Well, it is tiresome. Let them finish the job themselves. Oh dear, oh dear! We cant have a minute to ourselves. Shoving us out like that! HANNAH. Whose horse was it, Mr Daniels? ELDER DANIELS [returning to move the other sack] I am sorry to say that it was the Sheriff’s horse—the one he loaned to young Strapper. Strapper loaned it to me; and the thief stole it, thinking it was mine. If it had been mine, I’d have forgiven him cheerfully. I’m sure I hoped he would get away; for he had two hours start of the Vigilance Committee. But they caught him. [He disposes of the other sack also]. JESSIE. It cant have been much of a horse if they caught him with two hours start. ELDER DANIELS [coming back to the centre of the group] The strange thing is that he wasn’t on the horse when they took him. He was walking; and of course he denies that he ever had the horse. The Sheriff’s brother wanted to tie him up and lash him till he confessed what he’d done with it; but I couldn’t allow that: it’s not the law. BABSY. Law! What right has a horse-thief to any law? Law is thrown away on a brute like that. ELDER DANIELS. Dont say that, Babsy. No man should be made to confess by cruelty until religion has been tried and failed. Please God I’ll get the whereabouts of the horse from him if youll be so good as to clear out from this. [Disturbance outside]. They are bringing him in. Now ladies! please, please. [They rise reluctantly. Hannah, Jessie, and Lottie retreat to the Sheriff’s bench, shepherded by Daniels; but the other women crowd forward behind Babsy and Emma to see the prisoner. Blanco Posnet it brought in by Strapper Kemp, the Sheriff’s brother, and a cross-eyed man called Squinty. Others follow. Blanco is evidently a blackguard. It would be necessary to clean him to make a close guess at his age; but he is under forty, and an upturned, red moustache, and the arrangement of his hair in a crest on his brow, proclaim the dandy in spite of his intense disreputableness. He carries his head high, and has a fairly resolute mouth, though the fire of incipient delirium tremens is in his eye. His arms are bound with a rope with a long end, which Squinty holds. They release him when he enters; and he stretches himself and lounges across the courthouse in front of the women. Strapper and the men remain between him and the door.] BABSY [spitting at him as he passes her] Horse-thief! horse-thief! OTHERS. You will hang for it; do you hear? And serve you right. Serve you right. That will teach you. I wouldn’t wait to try you. Lynch him straight off, the varmint. Yes, yes. Tell the boys. Lynch him. BLANCO [mocking] “Angels ever bright and fair—” BABSY. You call me an angel, and I’ll smack your dirty face for you. BLANCO. “Take, oh take me to your care.” EMMA. There wont be any angels where youre going to. OTHERS. Aha! Devils, more likely. And too good company for a horse-thief. ALL. Horse-thief! Horse-thief! Horse-thief! BLANCO. Do women make the law here, or men? Drive these heifers out. THE WOMEN. Oh! [They rush at him, vituperating, screaming passionately, tearing at him. Lottie puts her fingers in her ears and runs out. Hannah follows, shaking her head. Blanco is thrown down]. Oh, did you hear what he called us? You foul-mouthed brute! You liar! How dare you put such a name to a decent woman? Let me get at him. You coward! Oh, he struck me: did you see that? Lynch him! Pete, will you stand by and hear me called names by a skunk like that? Burn him: burn him! Thats what I’d do with him. Aye, burn him! THE MEN [pulling the women away from Blanco, and getting them out partly by violence and partly by coaxing] Here! come out of this. Let him alone. Clear the courthouse. Come on now. Out with you. Now, Sally: out you go. Let go my hair, or I’ll twist your arm out. Ah, would you? Now, then: get along. You know you must go. Whats the use of scratching like that? Now, ladies, ladies, ladies. How would you like it if you were going to be hanged? [At last the women are pushed out, leaving Elder Daniels, the Sheriff’s brother Strapper Kemp, and a few others with Blanco. Strapper is a lad just turning into a man: strong, selfish, sulky, and determined.] BLANCO [sitting up and tidying himself]— Oh woman, in our hours of ease. Is my face scratched? I can feel their damned claws all over me still. Am I bleeding? [He sits on the nearest bench]. ELDER DANIELS. Nothing to hurt. Theyve drawn a drop or two under your left eye. STRAPPER. Lucky for you to have an eye left in your head. BLANCO [wiping the blood off]— When pain and anguish wring the brow, Go out to them, Strapper Kemp; and tell them about your big brother’s little horse that some wicked man stole. Go and cry in your mammy’s lap. STRAPPER [furious] You jounce me any more about that horse, Blanco Posnet; and I’ll—I’ll— BLANCO. Youll scratch my face, wont you? Yah! Your brother’s the Sheriff, aint he? STRAPPER. Yes, he is. He hangs horse-thieves. BLANCO [with calm conviction] He’s a rotten Sheriff. Oh, a rotten Sheriff. If he did his first duty he’d hang himself. This is a rotten town. Your fathers came here on a false alarm of gold-digging; and when the gold didn’t pan out, they lived by licking their young into habits of honest industry. STRAPPER. If I hadnt promised Elder Daniels here to give him a chance to keep you out of Hell, I’d take the job of twisting your neck off the hands of the Vigilance Committee. BLANCO [with infinite scorn] You and your rotten Elder, and your rotten Vigilance Committee! STRAPPER. Theyre sound enough to hang a horse-thief, anyhow. BLANCO. Any fool can hang the wisest man in the country. Nothing he likes better. But you cant hang me. STRAPPER. Cant we? BLANCO. No, you cant. I left the town this morning before sunrise, because it’s a rotten town, and I couldn’t bear to see it in the light. Your brother’s horse did the same, as any sensible horse would. Instead of going to look for the horse, you went looking for me. That was a rotten thing to do, because the horse belonged to your brother—or to the man he stole it from—and I don’t belong to him. Well, you found me; but you didn’t find the horse. If I had took the horse, I’d have been on the horse. Would I have taken all that time to get to where I did if I’d a horse to carry me? STRAPPER. I dont believe you started not for two hours after you say you did. BLANCO. Who cares what you believe or dont believe? Is a man worth six of you to be hanged because youve lost your big brother’s horse, and youll want to kill somebody to relieve your rotten feelings when he licks you for it? Not likely. Till you can find a witness that saw me with that horse you cant touch me; and you know it. STRAPPER. Is that the law, Elder? ELDER DANIELS. The Sheriff knows the law. I wouldnt say for sure; but I think it would be more seemly to have a witness. Go and round one up, Strapper; and leave me here alone to wrestle with his poor blinded soul. STRAPPER. I’ll get a witness all right enough. I know the road he took; and I’ll ask at every house within sight of it for a mile out. Come boys. [Strapper goes out with the others, leaving Blanco and Elder Daniels together. Blanco rises and strolls over to the Elder, surveying him with extreme disparagement.] BLANCO. Well, brother? Well, Boozy Posnet, alias Elder Daniels? Well, thief? Well, drunkard? ELDER DANIELS. It’s no good, Blanco. Theyll never believe we’re brothers. BLANCO. Never fear. Do you suppose I want to claim you? Do you suppose I’m proud of you? Youre a rotten brother, Boozy Posnet. All you ever did when I owned you was to borrow money from me to get drunk with. Now you lend money and sell drink to other people. I was ashamed of you before; and I’m worse ashamed of you now, I wont have you for a brother. Heaven gave you to me; but I return the blessing without thanks. So be easy: I shant blab. [He turns his back on him and sits down]. ELDER DANIELS. I tell you they wouldn’t believe you; so what does it matter to me whether you blab or not? Talk sense, Blanco: theres no time for your foolery now; for youll be a dead man an hour after the Sheriff comes back. What possessed you to steal that horse? BLANCO. I didnt steal it. I distrained on it for what you owed me. I thought it was yours. I was a fool to think that you owned anything but other people’s property. You laid your hands on everything father and mother had when they died. I never asked you for a fair share. I never asked you for all the money I’d lent you from time to time. I asked you for mother’s old necklace with the hair locket in it. You wouldn’t give me that: you wouldn’t give me anything. So as you refused me my due I took it, just to give you a lesson. ELDER DANIELS. Why didnt you take the necklace if you must steal something? They wouldnt have hanged you for that. BLANCO. Perhaps I’d rather be hanged for stealing a horse than let off for a damned piece of sentimentality. ELDER DANIELS. Oh, Blanco, Blanco: spiritual pride has been your ruin. If youd only done like me, youd be a free and respectable man this day instead of laying there with a rope round your neck. BLANCO [turning on him] Done like you! What do you mean? Drink like you, eh? Well, Ive done some of that lately. I see things. ELDER DANIELS. Too late, Blanco: too late. [Convulsively] Oh, why didnt you drink as I used to? Why didnt you drink as I was led to by the Lord for my good, until the time came for me to give it up? It was drink that saved my character when I was a young man; and it was the want of it that spoiled yours. Tell me this. Did I ever get drunk when I was working? BLANCO. No; but then you never worked when you had money enough to get drunk. ELDER DANIELS. That just shews the wisdom of Providence and the Lord’s mercy. God fulfils himself in many ways: ways we little think of when we try to set up our own shortsighted laws against his Word. When does the Devil catch hold of a man? Not when he’s working and not when he’s drunk; but when he’s idle and sober. Our own natures tell us to drink when we have nothing else to do. Look at you and me! When we’d both earned a pocketful of money, what did we do? Went on the spree, naturally. But I was humble minded. I did as the rest did. I gave my money in at the drink-shop; and I said, “Fire me out when I have drunk it all up.” Did you ever see me sober while it lasted? BLANCO. No; and you looked so disgusting that I wonder it didn’t set me against drink for the rest of my life. ELDER DANIELS. That was your spiritual pride, Blanco. You never reflected that when I was drunk I was in a state of innocence. Temptations and bad company and evil thoughts passed by me like the summer wind as you might say: I was too drunk to notice them. When the money was gone, and they fired me out, I was fired out like gold out of the furnace, with my character unspoiled and unspotted; and when I went back to work, the work kept me steady. Can you say as much, Blanco? Did your holidays leave your character unspoiled? Oh, no, no. It was theatres: it was gambling: it was evil company, it was reading in vain romances: it was women, Blanco, women: it was wrong thoughts and gnawing discontent. It ended in your becoming a rambler and a gambler: it is going to end this evening on the gallows tree. Oh, what a lesson against spiritual pride! Oh, what a—[Blanco throws his hat at him]. BLANCO. Stow it, Boozy. Sling it. Cut it. Cheese it. Shut up. “Shake not the dying sinner’s hand.” ELDER DANIELS. Aye: there you go, with your scraps of lustful poetry. But you cant deny what I tell you. Why, do you think I would put my soul in peril by selling drink if I thought it did no good, as them silly temperance reformers make out, flying in the face of the natural tastes implanted in us all for a good purpose? Not if I was to starve for it to-morrow. But I know better. I tell you, Blanco, what keeps America to-day the purest of the nations is that when she’s not working she’s too drunk to hear the voice of the tempter. BLANCO. Dont deceive yourself, Boozy. You sell drink because you make a bigger profit out of it than you can by selling tea. And you gave up drink yourself because when you got that fit at Edwardstown the doctor told you youd die the next time; and that frightened you off it. ELDER DANIELS [fervently] Oh thank God selling drink pays me! And thank God he sent me that fit as a warning that my drinking time was past and gone, and that he needed me for another service! BLANCO. Take care, Boozy. He hasnt finished with you yet. He always has a trick up His sleeve— ELDER DANIELS. Oh, is that the way to speak of the ruler of the universe—the great and almighty God? BLANCO. He’s a sly one. He’s a mean one. He lies low for you. He plays cat and mouse with you. He lets you run loose until you think youre shut of him; and then, when you least expect it, he’s got you. ELDER DANIELS. Speak more respectful, Blanco—more reverent. BLANCO [springing up and coming at him] Reverent! Who taught you your reverent cant? Not your Bible. It says He cometh like a thief in the night—aye, like a thief—a horse-thief— ELDER DANIELS [shocked] Oh! BLANCO [overhearing him] And it’s true. Thats how He caught me and put my neck into the halter. To spite me because I had no use for Him—because I lived my own life in my own way, and would have no truck with His “Dont do this,” and “You mustnt do that,” and “Youll go to Hell if you do the other.” I gave Him the go-bye and did without Him all these years. But He caught me out at last. The laugh is with Him as far as hanging me goes. [He thrusts his hands into his pockets and lounges moodily away from Daniels, to the table, where he sits facing the jury box]. ELDER DANIELS. Dont dare to put your theft on Him, man. It was the Devil tempted you to steal the horse. BLANCO. Not a bit of it. Neither God nor Devil tempted me to take the horse: I took it on my own. He had a cleverer trick than that ready for me. [He takes his hands out of his pockets and clenches his fists]. Gosh! When I think that I might have been safe and fifty miles away by now with that horse; and here I am waiting to be hung up and filled with lead! What came to me? What made me such a fool? Thats what I want to know. Thats the great secret. ELDER DANIELS [at the opposite side of the table] Blanco: the great secret now is, what did you do with the horse? BLANCO [striking the table with his fist] May my lips be blighted like my soul if ever I tell that to you or any mortal men! They may roast me alive or cut me to ribbons; but Strapper Kemp shall never have the laugh on me over that job. Let them hang me. Let them shoot. So long as they are shooting a man and not a sniveling skunk and softy, I can stand up to them and take all they can give me—game. ELDER DANIELS. Dont be headstrong, Blanco. Whats the use? [Slyly] They might let up on you if you put Strapper in the way of getting his brother’s horse back. BLANCO. Not they. Hanging’s too big a treat for them to give up a fair chance. Ive done it myself. Ive yelled with the dirtiest of them when a man no worse than myself was swung up. Ive emptied my revolver into him, and persuaded myself that he deserved it and that I was doing justice with strong stern men. Well, my turn’s come now. Let the men I yelled at and shot at look up out of Hell and see the boys yelling and shooting at me as I swing up. ELDER DANIELS. Well, even if you want to be hanged, is that any reason why Strapper shouldn’t have his horse? I tell you I’m responsible to him for it. [Bending over the table and coaxing him]. Act like a brother, Blanco: tell me what you done with it. BLANCO [shortly, getting up and leaving the table] Never you mind what I done with it. I was done out of it. Let that be enough for you. ELDER DANIELS [following him] Then why don’t you put us on to the man that done you out of it? BLANCO. Because he’d be too clever for you, just as he was too clever for me. ELDER DANIELS. Make your mind easy about that, Blanco. He wont be too clever for the boys and Sheriff Kemp if you put them on his trail. BLANCO. Yes, he will. It wasnt a man. ELDER DANIELS. Then what was it? BLANCO [pointing upward] Him. ELDER DANIELS. Oh what a way to utter His holy name! BLANCO. He done me out of it. He meant to pay off old scores by bringing me here. He means to win the deal and you cant stop Him. Well, He’s made a fool of me; but He cant frighten me. I’m not going to beg off. I’ll fight off if I get a chance. I’ll lie off if they cant get a witness against me. But back down I never will, not if all the hosts of heaven come to snivel at me in white surplices and offer me my life in exchange for an umble and a contrite heart. ELDER DANIELS. Youre not in your right mind, Blanco. I’ll tell em youre mad. I believe theyll let you off on that. [He makes for the door]. BLANCO [seizing him, with horror in his eyes] Dont go: dont leave me alone: do you hear? ELDER DANIELS. Has your conscience brought you to this that youre afraid to be left alone in broad daylight, like a child in the dark? BLANCO. I’m afraid of Him and His tricks. When I have you to raise the devil in me—when I have people to shew off before and keep me game, I’m all right; but Ive lost my nerve for being alone since this morning. It’s when youre alone that He takes His advantage. He might turn my head again. He might send people to me—not real people perhaps. [Shivering] By God, I dont believe that woman and the child were real. I dont. I never noticed them till they were at my elbow. ELDER DANIELS. What woman and what child? What are you talking about? Have you been drinking too hard? BLANCO. Never you mind. Youve got to stay with me: thats all; or else send someone else—someone rottener than yourself to keep the devil in me. Strapper Kemp will do. Or a few of those scratching devils of women. Strapper Kemp comes back. ELDER DANIELS [to Strapper] He’s gone off his head. STRAPPER. Foxing, more likely. [Going past Daniels and talking to Blanco nose to nose]. It’s no good: we hang madmen here; and a good job too! BLANCO. I feel safe with you, Strapper. Youre one of the rottenest. STRAPPER. You know youre done, and that you may as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. So talk away. Ive got my witness; and I’ll trouble you not to make a move towards her when she comes in to identify you. BLANCO [retreating in terror] A woman? She aint real: neither is the child. ELDER DANIELS. He’s raving about a woman and a child. I tell you he’s gone off his chump. STRAPPER [calling to those without] Shew the lady in there. Feemy Evans comes in. She is a young woman of 23 or 24, with impudent manners, battered good looks, and dirty-fine dress. ELDER DANIELS. Morning, Feemy. FEEMY. Morning, Elder. [She passes on and slips her arm familiarly through Strapper’s]. STRAPPER. Ever see him before, Feemy? FEEMY. Thats the little lot that was on your horse this morning, Strapper. Not a doubt of it. BLANCO [implacably contemptuous] Go home and wash yourself, you slut. FEEMY [reddening, and disengaging her arm from Strapper’s] I’m clean enough to hang you, anyway. [Going over to him threateningly]. Youre no true American man, to insult a woman like that. BLANCO. A woman! Oh Lord! You saw me on a horse, did you? FEEMY. Yes I did. BLANCO. Got up early on purpose to do it, didn’t you? FEEMY. No I didn’t: I stayed up late on a spree. BLANCO. I was on a horse, was I? FEEMY. Yes you were; and if you deny it youre a liar. BLANCO [to Strapper] She saw a man on a horse when she was too drunk to tell which was the man and which was the horse— FEEMY [breaking in] You lie. I wasn’t drunk—at least not as drunk as that. BLANCO [ignoring the interruption]—and you found a man without a horse. Is a man on a horse the same as a man on foot? Yah! Take your witness away. Who’s going to believe her? Shove her into the dustbin. Youve got to find that horse before you get a rope round my neck. [He turns away from her contemptuously, and sits at the table with his back to the jury box]. FEEMY [following him] I’ll hang you, you dirty horse-thief; or not a man in this camp will ever get a word or a look from me again. Youre just trash: thats what you are. White trash. BLANCO. And what are you, darling? What are you? Youre a worse danger to a town like this than ten horse-thieves. FEEMY. Mr Kemp: will you stand by and hear me insulted in that low way? [To Blanco, spitefully] I’ll see you swung up and I’ll see you cut down: I’ll see you high and I’ll see you low, as dangerous as I am. [He laughs]. Oh you neednt try to brazen it out. Youll look white enough before the boys are done with you. BLANCO. You do me good. Feemy. Stay by me to the end, wont you? Hold my hand to the last; and I’ll die game. [He puts out his hand: she strikes savagely at it; but he withdraws it in time and laughs at her discomfiture]. FEEMY. You— ELDER DANIELS. Never mind him, Feemy: he’s not right in his head to-day. [She receives the assurance with contemptuous credulity, and sits down on the step of the Sheriff’s dais]. Sheriff Kemp comes in: a stout man, with large flat ears, and a neck thicker than his head. ELDER DANIELS. Morning, Sheriff. THE SHERIFF. Morning, Elder. [Passing on.] Morning, Strapper. [Passing on]. Morning, Miss Evans. [Stopping between Strapper and Blanco]. Is this the prisoner? BLANCO [rising] Thats so. Morning, Sheriff. THE SHERIFF. Morning. You know, I suppose, that if you’ve stole a horse and the jury find against you, you wont have any time to settle your affairs. Consequently, if you feel guilty, youd better settle em now. BLANCO. Affairs be damned! Ive got none. THE SHERIFF. Well, are you in a proper state of mind? Has the Elder talked to you? BLANCO. He has. And I say it’s against the law. It’s torture: thats what it is. ELDER DANIELS. He’s not accountable. He’s out of his mind, Sheriff. He’s not fit to go into the presence of his Maker. THE SHERIFF. You are a merciful man, Elder; but you wont take the boys with you there. [To Blanco]. If it comes to hanging you, youd better for your own sake be hanged in a proper state of mind than in an improper one. But it wont make any difference to us: make no mistake about that. BLANCO. Lord keep me wicked till I die! Now Ive said my little prayer. I’m ready. Not that I’m guilty, mind you; but this is a rotten town, dead certain to do the wrong thing. THE SHERIFF. You wont be asked to live long in it, I guess. [To Strapper] Got the witness all right, Strapper? STRAPPER. Yes, got everything. BLANCO. Except the horse. THE SHERIFF. Whats that? Aint you got the horse? STRAPPER. No. He traded it before we overtook him, I guess. But Feemy saw him on it. FEEMY. She did. STRAPPER. Shall I call in the boys? BLANCO. Just a moment, Sheriff. A good appearance is everything in a low-class place like this. [He takes out a pocket comb and mirror, and retires towards the dais to arrange his hair]. ELDER DANIELS. Oh, think of your immortal soul, man, not of your foolish face. BLANCO. I cant change my soul, Elder: it changes me—sometimes. Feemy: I’m too pale. Let me rub my cheek against yours, darling. FEEMY. You lie: my color’s my own, such as it is. And a pretty color youll be when youre hung white and shot red. BLANCO. Aint she spiteful, Sheriff? THE SHERIFF. Time’s wasted on you. [To Strapper] Go and see if the boys are ready. Some of them were short of cartridges, and went down to the store to buy them. They may as well have their fun; and itll be shorter for him. STRAPPER. Young Jack has brought a boxful up. Theyre all ready. THE SHERIFF [going to the dais and addressing Blanco] Your place is at the bar there. Take it. [Blanco bows ironically and goes to the bar]. Miss Evans: youd best sit at the table. [She does so, at the corner nearest the bar. The Elder takes the opposite corner. The Sheriff takes his chair]. All ready, Strapper. STRAPPER [at the door] All in to begin. (The crowd comes in and fills the court. Babsy, Jessie, and Emma come to the Sheriff’s right; Hannah and Lottie to his left.) THE SHERIFF. Silence there. The jury will take their places as usual. [They do so]. BLANCO. I challenge this jury, Sheriff. THE FOREMAN. Do you, by Gosh? THE SHERIFF. On what ground? BLANCO. On the general ground that it’s a rotten jury. [Laughter]. THE SHERIFF. Thats not a lawful ground of challenge. THE FOREMAN. It’s a lawful ground for me to shoot yonder skunk at sight, first time I meet him, if he survives this trial. BLANCO. I challenge the Foreman because he’s prejudiced. THE FOREMAN. I say you lie. We mean to hang you, Blanco Posnet; but you will be hanged fair. THE JURY. Hear, hear! STRAPPER [to the Sheriff] George: this is rot. How can you get an unprejudiced jury if the prisoner starts by telling them theyre all rotten? If theres any prejudice against him he has himself to thank for it. THE BOYS. Thats so. Of course he has. Insulting the court! Challenge be jiggered! Gag him.
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please—
A ministering angel thou.