Squire Longbow interfered, and stated that "he must say that things were going on very 'promis'cusly,' quite agin the peace and dignity of the state."
"Just so I think myself," added Mrs. Brown. "This place is like a town-meeting, for all the world."
"Mrs. So-no-ra Brown!" exclaimed Ike, rising on his feet, a little enraged, "do you know anything about what Charity Beadle said about Philista Filkins? Answer this question."
"Whew! fiddle-de-dee! highty-tighty! so you have really broke loose, Mr. Pettifogger," for now the old lady's temper was up. "Why, didn't you know I was old enough to be your grandmother? Why, my boy," continued she, hurrying on her spectacles, and taking a long look at Ike, "I know'd your mother when she made cakes and pies down in the Jarseys; and you when you warn't more than so high;" and she measured about two feet high from the floor. "You want me to answer, do you? I told you all I know'd about it; and if you want anything more, I guess you'll have to get it, that's all;" and, jumping up, she left the witness-stand, and disappeared in the crowd.
"I demand an attachment for Sonora Brown!" roared out Ike, "an absconding witness!"
"Can't do it," replied the Squire; "it's agin the Constitution to deprive anybody of their liberty an unreasonable length of time. This witness has been confined here by process of law morn-a-nour. Can't do it! Be guilty of trespass! Must stick to the Constitution. Call your next witness."
Ike swore. The Squire fined him one dollar. He swore again. The Squire fined him another. The faster the Squire fined, the faster the oaths rolled out of Ike's mouth, until the Squire had entered ten dollars against him. Ike swore again, and the Squire was about to record the eleventh dollar, but Ike checked him.
"Hold on! hold on! you old reprobate! now I've got you! now you are mine!" exclaimed he. "You are up to the limit of the law! You cannot inflict only ten dollars in fines in any one case! Now stand and take it!"
And such a volley of oaths, cant phrases, humor, wrath, sarcasm, and fun, sometimes addressed to the Squire, sometimes to the audience, and sometimes to his client, never rolled out of any other man's mouth since the flood. He commenced with the history of the Squire, when, as he said, "he was a rafting lumber down on the Susquehanna;" and he followed him up from that time. "He could tell the reason why he came west, but wouldn't." He commented on his personal appearance, and his capacity for the office of justice. He told him "he hadn't only one eye, any way, and he couldn't be expected to see a great way into a mill-stone; and he didn't believe he had as many brains as an 'ister. For his part, he knew the law; he had ransacked every part of the statute, as a glutton would Noah's Ark for the remnant of an eel; he had digested it from Dan to Beersheba; swallowed everything but the title-page and cover, and would have swallowed that if he warn't mortal; he was a living, moving law himself; when he said 'law was law, 'twas law;' better 'peal anything up from predestination than from his opinion! he would follow this case to the backside of sundown for his rights!"
During all this time there was a complete uproar. Philista's friends cheered and hurrahed; the dogs in the room set up their barking; Beadle's friends groaned, and squealed, and bellowed, and whimpered, and imitated all the domestic animals of the day, while the Squire was trying at the top of his lungs to compel the constable to commit Ike for contempt.