And all the while secretly, with haunch and elbow, he nudged, bumped and rubbed the shoulders and silvery head of Jay Dee. It is here claimed that he stood there in the conviction that it was his duty so to testify. It is not denied that he so bumped and squatted against Jay Dee, cautiously, but with relish and pleasure.
In the bowed silver head, behind the shy, persistent eyes of Jay Dee, what were his thoughts, his purposes, coiling and constricting? None but the two were aware of the locked throat grip of the spirit. In the droning Sabbath peace the congregation pursued the minister through the subdivisions of his text, and dragged the hymn behind the dragging choir.
It was a June day and the orioles gurgled their warm nesting notes in the maples. The boys in the gallery searched the surface of the quiet assembly for points of interest; only here and there nodding heads, wavering fans, glazed, abstracted eyes. They twisted and yawned. What to them were brethren in unity, or the exegesis of a text, as if one were to count and classify, prickle by prickle, to no purpose the irritating points of a chestnut burr? The sermon drowsed to its close. The choir and Albion rose. It was an outworn sight now, little more curious than Monday morning. The sunlight shone through the side windows, slanting down over the young, worldly and impatient, and one selected ray fell on Jay Dee's hair with spiritual radiance, and on Albion's red face, turned choirward for a testimony.
Suddenly Albion gave a guttural shout. He turned, he grasped Jay Dee's collar, dragged him headlong into the aisle, and shook him to and fro, protesting, “You stuck me! I'll teach you!”
His red face worked with passion; Jay Dee's venerable head bobbed, helpless, mild, piteous. The choir broke down. The minister rose with lifted hands and open mouth, the gallery in revelry, the body of the church in exclamatory confusion. Albion saw outstretched hands approaching, left his enemy, and hat in hand strode down the aisle with red, glowering face, testifying, “He stuck me.”
Jay Dee sat on the floor, his meek head swaying dizzily.
On Monday morning Albion set out for Hamilton down the narrow valley of the Pilgrim River. The sudden hills hid him and his purposes from Ramoth. He came in time to sit in the office of Simeon Ballister, and Simeon's eyes gleamed. He took notes and snuffed the battle afar.
“Ha! Witnesses to pin protruding from coat in region adjoining haunch. Hum! Affidavits to actual puncture of inflamed character, arguing possibly venom of pin. Ha! Hum! Motive of concurrent animosity. A very respectable case. I will come up and see your witnesses—Ha!—in a day or two. Good morning.”
Ballister was a shining light in the county courts in those days, but few speak of him now. Yet he wrote a Life of Byron, a History of Hamilton County, and talked a half century with unflagging charm. Those who remember will have in mind his long white beard and inflamed and swollen nose, his voice of varied melody. Alien whiskey and natural indolence kept his fame local. His voice is silent forever that once rose in the court-rooms like a fountain shot with rainbow fancies, in musical enchantment, in liquid cadence. “I have laid open, gentlemen, the secret of a human heart, shadowed and mourning, to the illumination of your justice. You are the repository and temple of that sacred light. Not merely as a plaintiff, a petitioner, my client comes; but as a worshipper, in reverence of your function, he approaches the balm and radiance of that steadfast torch and vestal fire of civilization, an intelligent jury.” Such was Ballister's inspired manner, such his habit of rhythm and climax, whenever he found twenty-four eyes fixed on his swollen nose, the fiery mesmeric core of his oratory beaconing juries to follow it and discover truth.
But the Case of Dee v. Dee came only before a justice of the peace, in the Town Hall of Ramoth, and Justice Kernegan was but a stout man with hairy ears and round, spectacled, benevolent eyes. Jay Dee brought no advocate. His silvery hair floated about his head. His pale eyes gazed in mild terror at Ballister. He said it must have been a wasp stung Albion.