This impression grew until the jury called in the constable from his station at the door to convey their request for instruction upon a matter of law. Although long after nightfall, the court was still in session, owing to the crowded state of the docket, and when the jury were led into the court-room to receive from the bench an explanation of the point in question, Benjie was elated to find that the information they had sought aided and elucidated his position. The first ballot taken after returning to the jury-room resulted in ten of the jurors supporting his insistence against only two, and of these the foreman was one. They balloted once more just before they started to go to the hotel to bed, still guarded by the constable, who kept them, in a compact body, from any communication with the public. On this ballot only the foreman was in the opposition.
When they were standing in the hallway of the upper story of the hotel, and the officer was assigning them to their rooms and explaining to the foreman that he would be within call if anything was needed, Benjie, now in high spirits, was moved to exclaim, “Never fear, sonny; a muel is always ekal ter a good loud bray.”
All the jury applauded this turning of the tables, and laughed at the foreman, and one demanded of Benjie what he fed on “up in the sticks to get so all-fired sharp.”
The next morning, to the old mountaineer’s great satisfaction, the foreman, having slept on his perplexities, awoke to Benjie’s way of thinking, and when they were once more in the court-room he pridefully stated that they had reached an agreement and found the prisoner “Not guilty.” The crowd in the court-room cheered; in one moment the prisoner looked like another man, and genially shook hands with each of the jury; the judge thanked them before discharging them from further duty; and as Benjie pushed out of the court-room in the crowd all this was on the tip of his tongue to narrate for the eager wonderment and interest of Editha.
An immediate start for home was essential in order not to tax old Whitey too severely, for the clay roads were heavy as the result of a recent rainfall, and they must reach the mountain before sunset, in view of the steep and dangerous ascent. Therefore he sent word to Editha to meet him at a certain corner, while he repaired to the livery-stable for his vehicle; for he had happened to encounter her hostess, a kinswoman, on his way from the court-room, and had taken ceremonious leave of her on the street.
“I don’t want no more hand-shakin’ an’ farewells,” he said to himself, flustered and eager for the start, so delighted was he to be homeward-bound with Editha and fairly launched on the recital of his wondrous experiences while serving on the jury.
His lips were vaguely moving, now with a word, now with a pleased smile, formulating the sequences of his story, as he jogged along in his little wagon and suddenly caught sight of his wife awaiting him at the appointed corner.
At the first glance he remarked the change. It was Editha in semblance, but not the Editha he knew or had ever known.
“Editha!” he murmured faintly, all his being resolved into eyes, as he checked old Whitey and drew up close to the curb.
No meager old woman this, wont to hold herself a trifle stoop-shouldered, to walk with a slow, shuffling gait. Her thin figure was braced alertly, like some slender girl’s. She stepped briskly, lightly, from the high curb, and with two motions, as the soldiers say, she put her foot on the hub of the wheel and was seated beside him in the wagon. Then he saw her face, through the tunnel of her dark-blue sunbonnet, suffused with a pink bloom as delicate as a peach-blossom. Her eyes were as blue and as lustrous as the silk muffler, which the artist had doubtless selected with a realization of the accord of these fine tints. A curl of her silky, white hair lay on her forehead, and another much longer hung down beneath the curtain of her bonnet, scarcely more suggestive of age than if it had been discreetly powdered. Her lips were red, and there was a vibration of joyous excitement in her voice.