“Then why do you accuse me in your heart of wronging a half-witted girl?� he asked coldly.
The judge rose from his chair and walked twice across the room; then he stopped in front of the younger man. “Caleb,� he said, “by the Lord Harry, I’m plumb ashamed to ask you to forgive me.�
Caleb smiled a little sadly. “Judge,� he said, “there’s nothing to forgive. Without your friendship I should have been a lost man. I understand. Slander has a hundred tongues.�
“Zeb Bartlett is shouting the accusation to the four winds of heaven, I presume,� said the judge, “and there’s the child—you—�
“I’ve taken him,� said Caleb, “and I mean to keep him. I’ve known poverty, I’ve known homelessness, I’ve known slander; the kid has got to face it all, and he won’t do it without one friend.�
The judge looked at him a long time, then he went over and clapped his hand down on his shoulder. “By the Lord Harry!� he said, “you’re a man, and I respect you. Let them talk—to the devil!�
“Amen!� said Caleb Trench.
XXIII
WHEN the case of the Commonwealth versus Caleb Trench was called, it was found necessary to convene the court in the old criminal court-room in the northeast corner of the quadrangle. The room from which Yarnall had been shot, known as Criminal Court Number One, was too open to the square, and too conveniently located as a storm center. The old court-room facing northeast was smaller, and so poorly lighted that dull mornings it was necessary to burn lights on the judge’s desk and at the recorder’s table. It opened on the inner court, and the only thing seen from the window was the tree of heaven, which was turning a dingy yellow and dropping its frond-like leaves into the court below. During half the trial Aaron Todd’s son and another youngster sat in this tree and peered in the windows, the room being too crowded for admittance; but when Miss Royall testified even the windows were so stuffed with humanity that the two in the tree saw nothing, and roosted in disappointment.
In the quadrangle before the court-house, and in a hollow square around it, were the troops, through the whole trial, and after a while one got used to the rattle of their guns as they changed at noon. Men fought for places in the court-room, and the whole left-hand side was packed solid with young and pretty women. The figure of Caleb Trench, since his famous Cresset speech, had loomed large on the horizon, and the account of the frustrated lynching added a thrilling touch of romance. Besides, Jacob Eaton was to testify against him, and that alone would have drawn an audience. The thrill of danger, the clash of the sentry’s rifle in the quadrangle, the constant dread of riots, added a piquancy to the situation that was like a dash of fine old wine in a ragout. The room was packed to suffocation, and reporters for distant newspapers crowded the reporters’ table, for the case was likely to be of national interest. The doors and the corridors were thronged, and a long line waited admission on the staircase. Some failed to get in the first or the second day, and being desperate stayed all night outside, and so were admitted on the third day.