Old Jessamine knew nothing of legal principles and RoBards could hardly keep him from popping up and blustering what he whispered to Webster:
“Legal principles! legal bosh! I’ve been poor for ten years now and the city has grown fat and rich, and it has no right to send one of its most honorable merchants down to a pauper’s grave for no fault of his own. Make ’em give me my two hundred thousand dollars or they’ll murder me with their ‘legal principles.’”
Mr. Webster nodded his great head and agreed that Mr. Jessamine was right, but the law must take its course.
General Butler pleaded with the judges in their own language, and they consented to hear the case, though it was plain that they wanted only to hear Mr. Webster. They wanted to hear that trombone voice peal forth its superhuman music. The words would mean no more than the libretto of the Italian works sung at Palmo’s Opera House.
CHAPTER XXVIII
The assembly was worthy of the suit and of the vast amount involved. It thrilled old Jessamine to be the man who dragged the metropolis itself to the bar of its own conscience, and demanded penance.
The court was large and stately. In addition to the three judges of the Supreme Court, and the Chancellor, the state senators were gathered in judgment under the presidence of the Lieutenant Governor.
The trial was as long as it was large. As attorney for the plaintiff, General Butler spoke for a day. Mr. Graham spent another day in defense of the city. RoBards had his day in court, but his spirit was quenched by the knowledge that he was heeded only as so much sand pouring through the throat of the hourglass. Webster, who sat and sweat and listened in silence, was the one thing waited for.
The news that he was at last to speak packed the courtroom with spectators. The day was suffocating. The humidity thrust needles into the flesh, and the voice of Webster was like the thunder that prowls along the hills on a torrid afternoon.
For five hours he spoke, and enchanted people who cared little what words made up his rhapsody. His presence was embodied majesty; his voice an apocalyptic trumpet; his gestures epic; his argument rolled along with the rhythm, the flood, the logic of an Iliad.