He went off gayly down the hall, jingling his keys. Presently his voice was heard in another mood, swearing at the judge and demanding, “What sorter man is this hyar Gwinnan, ennyhow, ez you-uns hev got out thar on the bench? Send me twelve men ter eat an’ sleep, an’ the jail ez full ez it air! Does he think I keep a tavern? Thar ain’t room enough hyar fur twelve fleas!”
He compassed the problem somehow, for the jurymen, smarting with the indignity and hardship, were led forth the next morning, having slept as well as was possible considering the united grievances of the accommodations and the mortification, and eaten as their reduced appetites and the prison fare permitted.
They resumed their deliberations in the jury-room, and it argues much for their earnest desire to do right and their respect for their oath that they did not find a verdict at hap-hazard. They reported again and again that they could reach no decision. They were held over Sunday, and after nightfall on Monday they came into the court-room, and in guarded phrase and with some perturbation of manner announced once more that they could not agree as to the guilt or innocence of the prisoner.
In answer to the usual question, the foreman was eager to explain that they had experienced no difficulty other than a difference of opinion, and felt no want of further instructions. He forbore to offer criticisms upon judicial methods, and the men behind him, all acutely realizing the position of the dog’s tail, breathed more freely. The judge looked at them with a certain resentment in his eyes. He leaned back in his chair, gnawing the end of his mustache. Mink sat beside his lawyer, eager, intent, hardly appreciating at the moment the significance of the disagreement. Harshaw had turned aside with a pettish mutter to his yellow beard, for the final adjournment for the term impended, Gwinnan being compelled to leave on the train that night to hold court in a remote county in his own circuit.
How Gwinnan could infuse into his impassive mien and his soft, expressionless drawl so caustic a suggestion of displeasure is one of those mysteries of manner addressed to a subtle and receptive sense which can take account of so fine and elusive a medium of communication. The jury, in receiving their discharge, felt like culprits until they were once more at large and in the outer air, when they swore at the judge with the heartiest unanimity,—on this point they could agree,—and promised themselves, taking note of his character as politician, that if ever they were vouchsafed the opportunity they would retaliate. Then among the loungers about the tavern they fell to asking the news with the hungry interest of travelers who have been long absent.
They experienced a certain surprise to find that their accountability as jurors had not ceased with their discharge. There was a manifest inclination on the part of public opinion, as embodied in the idlers about the hotel, to hold them individually responsible for the mischances of the trial. Perhaps the impression that they had been long absent was strengthened by the revolution which popular prejudice had accomplished in the interval. Its flexibility could hardly be better illustrated than by the fact that the prankish Mink had suddenly risen in its estimation to the dignity of a public martyr.
“He’s a tremenjious wild scamp, the Lord knows,” said one, “but folks ain’t jailed fur bein’ gamesome, an’ by rights ye oughter hev turned Mink out’n that jail this evenin’.”
“Yessir,” assented another. “Mink oughter be mighty nigh Hazel Valley by now, ef he had been gin a fair trial.”
That conclusive formula, “This is a free country, by the Lord!” was often insistently reiterated in the discussion, for the bewildered jury discovered that the persuasion of the prisoner’s innocence had never wavered after Alethea Sayles had sworn that she had seen Tad Simpkins since the disaster. The community at large had not been subjected to the morbid influences of seclusion, and mental stress, and the nervous shock which the jury had sustained upon the death of Peter Rood, and the necessity of persistent consideration of spiritual and spectral phenomena forced upon them by the attorney-general.