“I’ll go over to the sheriff’s with you and see him,” said the colonel, avoiding the use of the word “jail” with a delicacy that was his own.
“I’m beholden to you, Colonel Price, for all your great kindness,” said she.
There had been no delay in the matter of returning an indictment against Joe. The grand jury was in session at that time, opportunely for all concerned, and on the day that Joe was taken to the county jail the case was laid before that body by the prosecuting attorney. Before the grand jury adjourned that day’s business a true bill had been returned against Joe Newbolt, charging him with the murder of Isom Chase.
There was in Shelbyville at that time a lawyer who had mounted to his profession like a conqueror, over the heads of his fellow-townsmen as stepping-stones. Perhaps it would be nearer the mark to say that the chins of the men of Shelbyville were the rungs in this ladder, for the lawyer had risen from the barber’s chair. He had shaved and sheared his way from that ancient trade, in which he had been respected as an able hand, to the equally ancient profession, in which he was cutting a rather ludicrous and lumbering figure. 179
But he had that enterprise and lack of modesty which has lately become the fashion among young lawyers–and is spreading fast among the old ones, too–which carried him into places and cases where simply learning would have left him without a brief. If a case did not come to Lawyer Hammer, Lawyer Hammer went to the case, laid hold of it by force, and took possession of it as a kidnaper carries off a child.
Hammer was a forerunner of the type of lawyer so common in our centers of population today, such as one sees chasing ambulances through the streets with a business-card in one hand and a contract in the other; such as arrives at the scene of wreck, fire, and accident along with the undertaker, and always ahead of the doctors and police.
Hammer had his nose in the wind the minute that Constable Frost came into town with his prisoner. Before Joe had been in jail an hour he had engaged himself to defend that unsophisticated youngster, and had drawn from him an order on Mrs. Newbolt for twenty-five dollars. He had demanded fifty as his retainer, but Joe knew that his mother had but twenty-five dollars saved out of his wages, and no more. He would not budge a cent beyond that amount.
So, as Mrs. Newbolt and Colonel Price approached the jail that morning, they beheld the sheriff and Lawyer Hammer coming down the steps of the county prison, and between them Joe, like Eugene Aram, “with gyves upon his wrists.” The sheriff was taking Joe out to arraign him before the circuit judge to plead to the indictment.
The court convened in that same building where all the county’s business was centered, and there was no necessity for taking the prisoner out through one door and in at another, for there was a passage from cells to court-rooms. But if he had taken Joe that way, the sheriff would have lost a seldom-presented opportunity of showing himself on the 180 streets in charge of a prisoner accused of homicide, to say nothing of the grand opening for the use of his ancient wrist-irons.
Lawyer Hammer also enjoyed his distinction in that short march. He leaned over and whispered in his client’s ear, so that there would be no doubt left in the public understanding of his relations to the prisoner, and he took Joe’s arm and added his physical support to his legal as they descended the steps.