And then came Mr. Eldridge, kind and friendly, to have another little chat.
Morning came, cold and drizzly. An officer knocked at the door, and called out, “Breakfast.” And, in a moment, unwashed, and all uncombed, except the tin-peddler, who always carried a beard-comb in his pocket, they were marched across the street to the hotel.
There were a number of men on the piazza waiting to see them—jurymen, witnesses, and the accused himself, for he was on bail. He had seen the procession the night before, and, like the others, had read its meaning.
“Eli knows I wouldn’t do it,” he had said to himself, “and he’s going to hang out, sure.”
The jury began to turn from the court-house door. Everybody looked. A file of two men, another file, another, another; would there come three men, and then one? No; Eli no longer walked alone.
Everybody looked at Wood; he turned sharply away.
But this time the order of march in fact showed nothing, one way or the other. It only meant that the judge, who had happened to see the jury the night before returning from their supper, had sent for the high sheriff in some temper—for judges are human—and had vigorously intimated that if that statesman did not look after his fool of a deputy, who let a jury parade secrets to the public view, he would——!
The jury were in their room again. At nine o’clock came a rap, and a summons from the court.