"They'll bind him over," said old Silas to his friend. "They'll do that shore."
"Bind who over, Silas," said Craybill. "You mean Old Man Adamson and his eejit, don't you? The eejit's arrested, anyhow. But what's it all about? You don't believe it's true this here is 'Rory's son, now do you? How can that come?"
"Well, I ain't saying," replied old Silas cryptically, and nodding only in the general direction of the door, "but you'll see."
Old Aaron helped himself to a chew of tobacco thoughtfully. "They say Old Eph has got his dander up now, and's going to make plenty of trouble all along the line. Reckon he's ashamed of his son being licked thataway by just a kid like this. Come to think of it, it looks like Eph ain't got much glory out of it so far, has he?"
"No, and I'll bet he had to dig up some money—the Judge, he likely wouldn't think of it for less'n fifteen dollars anyways. That's the price of a good shoat these days. If the case was appealed, or if it got into a court of nisy prisus, or maybe got over into another county on a change of venoo, you can bet Judge Henderson wouldn't be doing none of them things for nothing, neither. The law's all right for them that has plenty of money. Sometimes I think there's other ways."
"Huh," said his companion, "old Adamson tried the other way, didn't he? Now look at him! If I was Old Man Adamson, or if I was his eejit son either, the best thing we could do, seems to me, would be to get out of town. This here boy's a fighter, if I'm any judge. Wonder if it is her boy! If it is, whoever was his father, huh? And how was he kep' hid for more'n twenty year?"
"He looks sort of changed since a couple of hours ago," said his friend judicially. "He's quieter now—why, when he come into town he was just laughing and talking like a kid. Of course, he must have knew—he knows who his father is all right. Now, come to think of it, if this here boy had any money he could sue them Adamsons for deefamation of character."
"How comes it he could? I hear say that all Old Man Adamson said was to call him nobody's son, and that's true enough, if he's her boy. If you call the truth to a man, that ain't no deefamation of character. As to 'Rory Lane, everybody knows the truth about her. You can't deefame a woman nohow, least of all her. We all know she had a baby when she was a girl, and it was sent away, and it died. Leastways, we thought we knew. I ain't right shore what we've knew. It looks like that woman had put up some sort of game on this town. What right had she to do that?"
"She was right white," said the other, somewhat irrelevantly. "Never seen no one no whiter than she was when she went in that door right now."
"I don't reckon we can get no seats any more—the room's plumb full."