"There were indictments almost without number for frauds, embezzlements and forgeries; the travail of reconstruction."
Laflin had been perniciously active all the morning. Before the judge had taken his seat upon the bench, he had interviewed many of the men who had been summoned upon the venire to try a veteran of the lost cause for murder and their pockets were filled with small bribes. He had checked off twelve names and given the list to the solicitor with the heartless remark "Now we'll hang the old secesh higher than Haman, and you and I Mr. Solicitor will divide between us his homestead." At this point of time an interruption came from one of the negro jurors to this effect, "Boss dere's wun secesh nigger dat sez he's agwine to hang de jurer epseps yu gin him wun mo dollar."
"Blast the wretch!" came the curse of this man of baleful power, "Where is he?" he enquired.
"See dat man standin dere ergin dat postess, dats him."
"Here you fellow," said Laflin, "How much money have you been paid to find the old secesh guilty?"
The negro in an abstracted way felt in his pockets and told the wretch that one juror had been paid two dollars, while he had received only one dollar, "und he mout conwic de rong man, den yu see boss, de pay mout not be ekal to de sponuality. Fling in wun mo dollar und de jurer gwine to hang dat secesh sho."
This conclave of diabolical spirits was held in the office of the sheriff at the hour of 9 a. m. Back yonder in the common jail, behind the fretted bars, was the veteran in the cell with black felons.
Why should the catalogue of this poor man's misfortune be enlarged, by super-adding to the loss of domestic tranquility, that greatest of all calamities, the loss of his liberty, aggravated by the imputation of crime and its consequent ignominy. He feels that the storm without is fraught with lightning, that renders desolate the face of nature, his mind has lost its elasticity, its spring, its pride; and who is the prisoner, whom the black crowd follow with the gaping vacuity of vulgar ignorance, assaulting him now and again with obscene gibes, as he is led from the cell to the dock? He is gifted by the God of nature with rare endowments, whose unconquered spirit breaks forth in a sentiment such as this,
"Let the hangman lead these miscreants to the gibbet,
And let the ravens of the air
Fatten upon their flesh until they pick each tainted carcass from the bones."