"I'll set the case for to-morrow, then," said the judge, and added in a sharper key, "Sheriff, command silence!" This last injunction was prompted by an incontinent rustle of interest in the court-room when the time for the murder trial was fixed for the next day. The judge's high-strung, irascible nerves, and his sense of the sacred dignity of his court, made him take offense at the slightest symptom of popular feeling.
The sheriff, who sat at the judge's left a little lower than the judge, now stood up and rapped with a mallet on the plank desk in front of him, and cried lustily, "Si—lence in court!"
And all was still again.
The judge's dignity would not admit of his addressing the commonalty, who, since they were neither members of the bar, court officers, witnesses, nor criminals, were beyond official recognition, but he said to the sheriff in a severe tone:
"Sheriff, you will arrest any person who makes any kind of disturbance in the court."
Then the business of the court went on. One after another of the spectators, whose interest was centered in the next day's session, rose and tip-toed softly out of the room. They did not all go at once, nor did any one of them go noisily. The judge had been known to fine a man for treading heavily, and those who wore squeaking boots were in misery until they were quite clear of the door.
XXIII
BROAD RUN IN ARMS
The popular imagination had made Tom into something monstrous. Visitors to the village went to the jail window to look at him, as one might go to look at a wild beast. Confinement, solicitude, and uncertainty had worn upon him. He shrank nervously into the darker corners of the jail to avoid observation. His mind was a very shuttlecock between the battledores of hope and fear. He knew no more than the public of the purposes or expectations of his lawyer. All that Lincoln would say to Tom or his friends was that the case was a difficult one, and that it was better to leave the line of defense wholly to himself. But in proportion as Tom's counsel was uncommunicative about his plans rumor was outspoken and confident, though not always consistent in its account of them. It was reported that Tom was to plead guilty to manslaughter; that Lincoln would try to clear him on the ground of justifiable homicide in self-defense; and that the lawyer had found a man willing to swear that he was in company with Tom on another part of the ground at the very time of the shooting. In any case, it was decided that Lincoln would move for a change of venue, for it was well understood that in Moscow the accused did not stand "a ghost of a chance."