The crowd swarmed into the court-room, stuffy and hot enough already, and the air vibrated with expectancy.
Proceeding up the long village street at this moment was a little group, headed by Captain Sam, not wholly unimpressed with the importance of his own part in the affair, the boys and Mrs. Warren following, and, not far in the rear, the colonel and the squire. Just as they reached the court-room door, Captain Sam halted the little party for a moment, and, not without reluctance, said: “Well, boys, I suppose I’ll have to serve these ’ere warrants before we go inside. I’m free to say I’m sorry to do it, but they’re the orders of this ’ere honourable court, and they must be obeyed by me, a sworn officer of the law.”
And having disposed of this somewhat painful formality, Captain Sam opened the door and the party were in court.
Presently they were joined by Squire Barker, a sober, elderly, clerical-looking lawyer, dressed in a somewhat rusty suit of black, serious-minded, whose lugubrious manner was not calculated to infuse a spirit of cheer into hearts that were sinking.
The county attorney, who was to conduct the case for the people of the State, a youthful attorney, of comparatively recent admission to practice, bustled about as became a functionary with the burden of an important matter upon his shoulders.
The court-room, save for the buzzing of innumerable flies upon the uncleaned window-panes, was still as a church when His Honour announced that the court was now open for whatsoever matters the county attorney had to bring before it.
After the usual formality of acquainting His Honour officially of the matter in hand, which matter His Honour was already as much acquainted with as a thousand and one busy tongues of gossip could make him, the likewise formal answer of “Not guilty” was returned, and, without further delay, Colonel Witham was called to the stand.
The colonel, fully awake to his opportunity, took the stand rather pompously, thrust a well-filled, expansive waistband to the front, whence there dangled from a waistcoat pocket a ponderous gold chain, plentifully adorned with trinkets, in the handling of which, as he testified, a large seal ring on a finger of his right hand was ostentatiously displayed.
Yes,—in answer to questions,—he was the lessee of the Bayview Hotel on the 10th of September last, on which day it was burned to the ground; and, if he did say it, there was no better conducted hotel along the shores of Samoset Bay.
Suggestion by His Honour that he please answer the questions as put, and reserve his own personal opinions and convictions to himself, received by the colonel with evident surprise and some little loss of dignity.