The Gold Brick

by Ann S. Stephens

"What did she say?"

"Oh, it wasn't that. She went toward the stand quiet enough, but just as they held the Bible out to her she looked up at Katharine, and begun to shake so that one of the constables had to take hold of her."

"What did the girl do?"

"She kind o' raised herself and looked at her mother. I can't tell you what it was like. I've seen a lamb look like it when the knife was at its throat. The old woman tried to stand up firm, but when she saw that poor cretur she just laid her head down on the railing and begun shaking and sobbing like every thing, but she didn't shed a single tear. When she lifted her head again, Katharine looked at her and smiled. She did actually, but it was enough to break a man's heart. I'd rather a seen her cry right out a thousand times."

The farmer paused here, took out his silk handkerchief again, and turned his face away.

"Poor gal," muttered one of his listeners; "it seems as if it was only yesterday I see her dancing about like a little poppet, with her curls hanging down her shoulders. I can't believe she did it, I can't, in spite of every thing; 'taint in natur."

"What's that they are saying?" cried one of the group. "The doctor's called up; I want to hear his evidence. Come, let's try and crowd in."

The two men joined forces, and elbowed their way into the court room again, not unfriendly to the poor girl, as our readers have seen, but resolved against losing a single feature of the scene they had come ten miles to witness.

It was, indeed, the doctor whose name had been called. He was enrolled among the witnesses of the prosecution; but those who knew that eccentric, but really great man, had an idea that, in attempting to criminate the poor girl by that witness, the law would find its match. The lawyers themselves partook somewhat of this feeling, and rather shrunk from the keen sarcasm and sly wit with which he was likely to retort upon any professional encroachment. As for his old neighbors, the doctor's evidence was a point in the trial which engaged their keenest interest. They held a sort of property right in the doctor's reputation for curt eccentricity, and were anxious to pit him against the lawyers in the most striking manner before the assembled wisdom of all Connecticut.

Thus, hundreds of faces, familiar about Bungy, Falls Hill, and Chewstown, brightened eagerly when the doctor's name was called out, and murmurs ran through the crowd that now those city lawyers would find their match. No mistake about it!