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.