Harshaw had flung himself back in his chair, that quaked in every fibre beneath him. He mopped his flushed face with his handkerchief, sighed with fatness and anxiety, and pulled down his vest and the stubs of his shirt sleeves about his thick wrists, for he wore no cuffs. He leaned forward from time to time, and whispered with eager perturbation to the prisoner, who seemed to listen with a sort of flout of indifference and confident protest. Mink’s conduct was so unexpected, so remarkable, that it attracted general attention. The members of the bar had taken note of it, and presently two or three commented in whispers on Harshaw’s preoccupation. For he, a stickler at trifles, a man that fought on principle every point of his case, had allowed something to slip his notice. The names of the jury were about to be drawn. The sheriff, seeking, according to the law, that exponent of guilelessness, “a child under ten years of age,” had encountered one in the hall, and came back into the room, beckoning with many an alluring demonstration some small person, invisible because of the density of the crowd. It once more showed a disposition to titter, for the sheriff, a bulky, ungainly man, was wreathing his hard features into sweetly insistent smiles, when there appeared, in the open space near the judge’s desk, a little maiden, following him, beginning to smile, too, under so many soft attentions. Her blowzy, uncovered hair was of a sunny hue; her red lips parted to show her snaggled little teeth; her eyes, so fresh, so blue, were fastened upon him with an expression of blandest favor; her plump little body was arrayed in a blue-checked cotton frock; and despite the season her feet were bare. It was perhaps this special mark of poverty that attracted the attention of one of the lawyers. He was a man of extraordinary memory, a politician, and well acquainted in the coves. He looked hard at the little girl. Then he whispered to a crony that she was the miller’s granddaughter. For it was “Sister Eudory.” They watched Harshaw with idle interest, expecting him to identify the small kinswoman of the drowned boy, and to derive from the fact some fine-spun theory of incompetency. He did not recognize her, however,—perhaps he had never before seen her; he only gave her a casual glance, and then turned his eyes upon the jury list in his hands.
The scrolls bearing the names of the proposed jurors were placed in a hat, and the sheriff, bowing his long back, extended it to “Sister Eudory.”
She held her pretty head askew, looked up, smiling with childish coquetry at the judge, put in her dimpled hand with a delicate tentative gesture, took out a scroll, and under the sheriff’s directions, handed it to the clerk with an elaborate air of bestowal. He looked at it, and read the name aloud.
Her charming infantile presence, as she stood by the judge’s desk among the grave, bearded men, drawing the jury with her dimpled hands, won upon the crowd. There were laughing glances interchanged, and no dissenting opinion as to the prettiness and “peartness” of “Sister Eudory.” She was evidently under the impression that she was performing some great public feat, as she again thrust in her hand, caught up another scroll, and smiled radiantly into the face of the judge, who was visibly embarrassed by the blandishments of the small coquette. He hardly knew how to return her gaze, and instead he glanced casually out of the window close by.
The defense frequently availed themselves of their right of peremptory challenge. This was a matter of preconcerted detail with the jury list before them. Whenever it was possible they challenged “for cause” until the venire was exhausted. Then jurors were summoned from the by-standers. It was not exactly the entertainment for which the crowd had been waiting, but they found a certain interest in seeing Mink, no longer indifferent, lean forward, and with acrimonious eagerness whisper into the counsel’s ear presumable defamations of the juror, who looked on helplessly and with an avidity of curiosity as to what was about to be publicly urged against him. Over and again the sheriff made incursions into the streets, summoning talesmen wherever he could lay his hands on suitable persons. Men of undoubted integrity and sobriety were scarce at the moment, for the good citizens of Shaftesville, averse to the duty, and hearing that he was abroad on this mission, disappeared as if the earth had swallowed them. Plunging into the stores, the baffled official would encounter only the grins of the few callow clerks—proprietor and customers having alike fled. Once he pursued the flying coat-tails and the soles of the nimble feet of one of the solid men of the town around a corner, never coming nearer. It was a time-honored custom to respond thus to one’s country’s call, and engendered no bitterness in the sheriff’s breast. Perhaps he considered this saltatory exercise one of the official duties to which he had been dedicated.
The difficulty of securing a jury was unexampled in the annals of the county. Many, otherwise eligible, confessed to a prejudice against Mink, and had formed and freely expressed an opinion as to his guilt. One old codger from some sequestered cove of the mountains, never before having visited Shaftesville, and desirous of adding to the strange tales of his travels the unique experience of serving on the jury, dashed his own hopes when questioned as usual, by replying glibly in the affirmative. He said, too, that the “outdacious rascality of the prisoner showed in his face, an’ ef they locked him up for life he’d be a warnin’ ter the other mischievious young minks, fur the kentry war a-roamin’ with ’em.” His look of blank amazement and discomfiture when told to “stand aside” elicited once more the ready titter of the crowd and the sheriff’s formula, “Silence in court!”
As such admissions were made, Mink sat, his head thrust forward, his bright, intent eyes flashing indignantly, a fluctuating flush on his pallid cheek, his whole lithe, motionless figure seeming so alert that it would scarcely have astonished the community if he had sprung upon the holder of these aggressive views of his guilt. His lawyer sneered, and now and then exchanged a glance of scornful comment with him,—for Harshaw had recovered his equanimity in the exercise of that most characteristic quality, his pugnacity, during his wrangles with the attorney for the State in challenging the jurymen.
The crude gray light of the autumn day waned. A dim shadow fell over the assemblage. Gusts of wind dashed the rain against the grimy panes, the drops trickling down in long, irregular lines; the yellow hickory leaves went whirling by, sometimes dropping upon the window-ledges, and away again on the restless blast. The mists pressed against the glass, then quivered and disappeared, and came once more. Occasionally a great hollow voice sounded from the empty upper chambers of the building and through the long halls; the doors left ajar slammed now and then, and the sashes rattled as the wind rose higher.
It was not more cheerful when the lamps were lighted, for the court did not adjourn at the usual hour. A strong smell of coal oil and of ill-trimmed wicks pervaded the air; a bated suffusion of yellow radiance emanated from them into the brown dimness of the great room. The illumined faces were dull with fatigue and glistening with perspiration, for the stove was once again red-hot,—an old colored man, with a tropical idea of comfort, appearing at close intervals with an armful of wood. Old Griff’s long white hair gleamed among the darker heads within the bar. He had fallen asleep, his forehead bowed on his hands, his hands clasped on his stick. Strange shadows seemed to be attending court. Grotesque distortions of humanity walked the walls, and lurked among the assemblage, and haunted the open door, and looked over the shoulder of the judge.