The badgered witness protested and explained, and Harshaw asked, lowering his voice, as if it were exceedingly important, “Now, did that whiskey taste like brush whiskey?”
As the quaking, shock-headed country lout replied, the facetious counsel recoiled.
“What! you tell this honorable court, and this intelligent jury, and this upright and learned and teetotaling attorney for the State, that you don’t know the difference in the taste between the illicit corn juice of the mountains and the highly honorable, pure, rectified liquor, taxed and stamped, made and drunk, under the auspices of this great, good, and glorious government!”
The judge, who had watched Harshaw with a dilated, gleaming gray eye and a quivering nostril, spoke abruptly.
“The court will not longer tolerate this buffoonery,” he drawled. “Counsel may cross-examine witness, and if he has nothing to say he may be silent.”
Harshaw flushed deeply. He had always enjoyed certain privileges as a wit. Judge Averill, who loved a joke for its own gladsome sake, had often permitted him to transcend decorum. He had no idea, however, of figuring as the butt of his own ridicule. He was a quick fellow, and took what advantage was possible of the situation. “If it please your Honor,” he said, rising to address the judge, and with an air of great courtesy, “I will waive the right of cross-examination, since my methods fail in satisfying the court.”
Gwinnan looked at him with thinly veiled antagonism. Harshaw relapsed into his tilted chair, still lightly holding his lapels, that favorite posture of rural gentlemen, listening with an air of polite but incidental attention to the attorney-general’s examination of the next witness, and declining with a wave of his fat hand to cross-examine.
A stir of excitement pervaded the bar; great interest was aroused in the audience. An old farmer, sitting on one of the benches, holding one treasured knee in both hands, put his foot on the floor to take care of itself, and leaned forward in breathless eagerness to lose no word. Others, who had been less attentive, were nudging one another, and asking what had been said. Again and again, as the successive witnesses were turned over to the defense for cross-examination, and the lawyer waved his pudgy hand, there was a suppressed sensation. His freak of silence had the effect of greatly expediting matters, and the attorney-general announced before the adjournment for dinner that he had no more witnesses to call.
In conducting the examination of the defendant’s witnesses Harshaw was extremely grave. He had an excited gleam in his eye, a flurried, precipitate manner, as he went on. Now and then he nodded his head, and tossed back his mane of yellow hair as if it were heavy and harassed him. He still sat in the big, important posture he liked to assume, but every glance was full of an acute anxiety.