As Stubbles did not reply but dropped his eyes to the floor, Douglas turned upon him.
"It was your son, Ben, who made the trouble that night, Mr. Stubbles," he charged. "He acted more like a beast than a human being, and because I interfered and checked him, he started out to have revenge. And how did he do it? In a manly way? Oh, no. He persuaded you to order me from the place, and when I refused to obey, he set men to waylay me at night along the road. He even gave the men liquor to induce them to carry out his evil designs, and then at the trial he blasphemously denied it all. And you," he added, turning to Squire Hawkins, "allowed British justice to be perverted."
"Are you not afraid to make such a charge as that, young man?" the Squire pompously asked. "Do you not already realise the danger you are in from last night's affair? How can you account for that?"
"Yes, that's what I want to know," Stubbles questioned. "Did you not stir up Jake Jukes and others to set upon my son and treat him in a most shameful manner?"
"I knew nothing at all about it," Douglas explained, "until my arrival from the city last night."
"You lie!" and Stubbles stamped furiously upon the floor. "Do you expect me or any one else to believe such a thing as that?"
"Ask Jake and the rest of the men. They know that I had nothing to do with the affair."
"I wouldn't believe what they said if they swore to it on all the Bibles in the world. They are nothing but a pack of curs, and I'll fix them, see if I don't."
"You will do nothing of the kind, Mr. Stubbles," the lawyer quietly remarked. "If you do, not a cent of money do you get from me."
"Keep your money, then," Stubbles retorted. "I'm not going to be brow-beaten by you or any one else, and especially by a farm-hand. I shall get along somehow, but I will have satisfaction for the injury that was committed last night. Ben is my son, and I am going to stand by him no matter what happens."