“May it please your honor, what is the duty of the sheriff of this county, if it is not to keep order in this court-room?”
The ponderous staff of the sheriff came down on the floor with a thump; but it was unnecessary. Silence had fallen on the spectators with the first words of the lawyer. The crowd knew that he was a game man, and they admired him for it. His whole attitude, as he gazed at the people around him, showed that he was full of fight. His heavy blond hair, swept back from his high forehead, looked like the mane of a lion, and his steel-gray eyes glittered under his shaggy and frowning brows.
The case of the State versus Ananias Flewellen, alias Ananias Harper—a name he had taken since freedom—was called in due form. It was observed that Lawyer Terrell was very particular to strike certain names from the jury list, but this gave no clue to the line of his defense. The first witness was Mr. Washington Jones, who detailed, as well as he knew how, the circumstances of the various robberies of which he had been the victim. He had suspected Ananias, but had not made his suspicions known until he was sure,—until he had caught him stealing sweet-potatoes.
The cross-examination of the witness by Ananias’s counsel was severe. The fact was gradually developed that Mr. Jones caught the negro stealing potatoes at night; that the night was dark and cloudy; that he did not actually catch the negro, but saw him; that he did not really see the negro clearly, but knew “in reason” that it must be Ananias.
The fact was also developed that Mr. Jones was not alone when he saw Ananias, but was accompanied by Mr. Miles Cottingham, a small farmer in the neighborhood, who was well known all over the county as a man of undoubted veracity and of the strictest integrity.
At this point Lawyer Terrell, who had been facing Mr. Jones with severity painted on his countenance, seemed suddenly to recover his temper. He turned to the listening crowd, and said, in his blandest tones, “Is Mr. Miles Cottingham in the room?”
There was a pause, and then a small boy perched in one of the windows, through which the sun was streaming, cried out, “He’s a-standin’ out yander by the horse-rack.”
Whereupon a subpœna was promptly made out by the clerk of the court, and the deputy sheriff, putting his head out of a window, cried:
“Miles G. Cottingham! Miles G. Cottingham! Miles G. Cottingham! Come into court.”
Mr. Cottingham was fat, rosy, and cheerful. He came into court with such a dubious smile on his face that his friends in the room were disposed to laugh, but they remembered that Lawyer Terrell was somewhat intolerant of these manifestations of good-humor. As for Mr. Cottingham himself, he was greatly puzzled. When the voice of the court crier reached his ears he was in the act of taking a dram, and, as he said afterward, he “come mighty nigh drappin’ the tumbeler.” But he was not subjected to any such mortification. He tossed off his dram in fine style, and went to the court-house, where, as soon as he had pushed his way to the front, he was met by Lawyer Terrell, who shook him heartily by the hand, and told him his testimony was needed in order that justice might be done.