"Ye mean to tell me I lie, ye dirty, hoss thief!"
One would have thought that in that crowd some voice had been found to call "shame" at the cowardly act of striking a man held from self defence by the hands of others. But the agricultural sense of honor is somewhat like the agricultural habits of life—somewhat narrowed by limited associations. Had the good feelings of the crowd been appealed to they would all have rushed after a leader like a flock of sheep, probably. It being the opposite, Horton was kicked and cuffed to their heart's content, as though each had a private grievance to attend to. They then stood him on his feet and demanded that he give an account of himself.
Thoroughly frightened and suffering much pain from the harsh treatment he had received, and fearing a repetition of it that seemed to indicate itself in the lowering looks surrounding him, the poor unfortunate Evangelist humbled his tone, and gave a truthful statement of himself and the manner in which he had obtained possession of the horse. Briefly he stated who he was and did not try to palliate the crime of being a tramp. Then he related how, while in company with Ben, he had traded a watch for the horse with a farmer's boy who lived in Bonfield, and had brought the animal in town to sell it; leaving his comrade back on the road, to come after him on the morrow.
"A likely story!"
"Did he think to stuff that down their throats?"
"A man without money having watches to give for horses! Too thin!"
"Where was his partner?"
"Selling another horse somewhere, probably!"
"He said he was a tramp, and what was a tramp but a hoss thief!"
And they laughed at his statements in derision. The tide was netting strong against the Evangelist. It became a perfect torrent when the sandy complexioned man called upon another sandy-complexioned man, with sandy hair and sandy beard and sandy clothes, and small sandy blue eyes, and hard sandy hands (honest, no doubt, but very ragged at the finger ends and very dirt-grimed) and a sandy voice, and sandy appearance generally from his heel to his occiput, to come take a good "squar" look at Horton, and see if he was not the man he had seen loafing around in the vicinity of Spoonerville? And this sandiest of all sandy men, feeling himself elevated to a consequential position, felt it incumbent upon his new notoriety to aver that Horton was the man; compromising with some slight qualms of conscience with the codicil that "leastways he luks mighty sight like him." That settled it. And all his wild protestations could not change the decision of the crowd that immediately transformed the luckless Evangelist from a tramp into a horse thief.