"When he come into court this mornin'," continued the Oracle, "with that there young lawyer man Edwards, I poked Lum Bozier in the side, and told him to keep his eye skinned, and he would see the fur fly, because I knowed that Sam Lynch, the prosecutin' attorney, allowed to go fer old Moseby, and Sam is a fire-eater, so he is, and he aint afraid of nuthin that walks on legs. But, Jerusalem! it war the tamest show that ever come to this yer town. Edwards jest sot down and lopped over like a weed, and Sam he begun, and he showed up how old Moseby had planned this here thing, and how he had lied to Jake Wade all the way through, and jest how he got that there money, and what an everlasting old rascal he was, and there sot Edwards, and he never asked no questions, and he never paid no attention to nuthin."
"Did n't the lawyer feller do nuthin at all, Dunk?" enquired one of the audience, who had evidently suffered the great misfortune of being absent from the trial.
"No," answered the Oracle, with a bovine sneer, "he never did nothin till late this evenin. Then he untangled his legs and got up and said somethin to the jedge about havin to let old Moseby Allen go, cause what he had done was n't no crime.
"Then you ought to a heard Sam. He jest naturally took the roof off; he sailed into old Moseby. He called him nine different kinds of horse-thieves, and when he got through, I could see old Ampe Props noddin his head back thar in the jury-box, and then I knowed that it were all up with Colonel Moseby Allen, cause that jury will go the way old Ampe goes, jest like a pack of sheep."
"I reckon Moseby's lawyer were skeered out," suggested Pooley Hornick, the blacksmith.
"I reckon he war," continued the Oracle, "cause when Sam sot down, he got up, and he said to the jedge that he didn't want to do no argufying, but he had a little paper that would show why the jedge would have to let old Moseby go free, and then he asked Sam if he wanted to see it, and Sam he said no, he cared nuthin for his little paper. Then the feller went over and give the little paper to the jedge, and the jedge he took it and he said he would decide in the mornin'."
"You don't reckon," said the farmer, "that the jedge will give the old colonel any show, do you?"
"Billdad Solsberry," said the Oracle, with a grave judicial air, as though to settle the matter beyond question, "you are a plumb fool. If the angel Gabriel war to drop down into Gullmore county, he could n't keep old Moseby Allen from goin' to the penitentiary."
Thus the good citizens sat in judgment, and foretold the doom of their fellow.