“Then I say, yes. A hundred times, yes. I was neither bullied nor bought; but I was deceived and defrauded. When I signed that paper the only line of stakes I knew anything about was the line that went across the brook and around the graveyard. I supposed that was the route I was sellin’. I said so to the man who brought the paper. He didn’t undeceive me. To all intents and purposes he lied to me, and his corporation has attempted to rob me. Do you think, sir,” demanded the old man, rising from his chair, with the crimson spreading over his neck and face, and pointing his long forefinger at the lawyer, “do you think I would sell to any person or to any company, for any money in this world, the right to desecrate the graves of my dead; the right to disturb bodies that were so dear to me in life, that I would have given all I possessed to save them from the slightest hurt? Do you? I say, do you?”
Marshall was getting more than he had bargained for; but he was too good a lawyer to permit himself to lose his grip.
“Be seated, Mr. Pickett,” he said firmly, “and keep cool. Now, don’t you know that, regardless of your agreement to sell the right of way, a railroad company has a right, under the laws of this state, on complying with certain conditions, to build its railroad on any land belonging to any person?”
The old man dropped back into his chair.
“No,” he replied, “I don’t. I ain’t a lawyer; but I don’t believe that’s the law. They say law’s founded on justice, and it ain’t just, and it ain’t human for any one to have the right to disturb my dead in their graves against my will. God’s Acre in this land and in this age is his holy of holies. He sends his rain an’ dew an’ frost to fall more gently on the homes o’ the dead than on the homes o’ the livin’; and it’s the duty, and ought to be the joy of any man to protect that sacred place from desecration.”
Through the hush that had fallen on the great crowd in the room, the old man’s voice rang pathetically clear. On the faces of the spectators there were no longer any smiles. The whole atmosphere of the court room had changed to one of solemn earnestness. Even the examining lawyer saw that it would not be fitting nor profitable to follow out that line of questioning. When he again spoke it was in a quieter voice, and on another branch of the subject.
“Mr. Pickett,” he said, “when did you first see this line of stakes?”
“Not till the next mornin’ after they were set.”