_The great, the famous, and the never-to-be-forgotten Trial.--Captain
Corbet hauled up before the Bar of Rhadamanthus.--Town and
Gown.--Attitude of the gallant Captain.--The sympathizing
Townsmen.--Old Zeke and his Bat.--Mr. Long’s eloquent Oration, ending
in the Apotheosis of Captain Corbet’s Baby. (For meaning of above
word--Apotheosis--see Dictionary.)_
THE day appointed for the hearing of Captain Corbet’s case was awaited
with an excitement which was almost equal to that which had been created
by the affair in the attic. It was to come off at eleven o’clock; but
the impatience of the boys was not to be restrained, and long before
that time they were all out in front of the Academy, gathered together
in groups, and discussing the probabilities of the trial. The wall had
been removed, and put into the schooner for ballast, and carried away.
It had been kept for more than a week. That was all undeniable. But,
then, on the other hand, it had all been replaced, so that it was better
than ever. That was equally undeniable. How, then, could the owner
prosecute? What damage had been done? In fact, the opinion of the boys
was, that instead of prosecuting, he ought to make the school a present
of some kind,--say a couple of barrels of apples, in return for their
skill and industry in rebuilding his old rickety, tumble-down stone
wall. Besides, he had no business to prosecute Captain Corbet. Mr. Long
was the guilty party. Why not prosecute him?
On the whole it was a question full of interest, and as the appointed
hour drew near, its advent created greater and greater excitement.
At a quarter before eleven the door of Dr. Porter’s house opened, and
out came Mr. Long, followed by Captain Corbet, while Mr. Simmons and the
doctor brought up the rear.
Their appearance was greeted with three rousing cheers by all the boys;
and as their respected teachers walked on towards the village, the
entire school followed at their heels, in a very irregular, very
disorderly, and very noisy procession.
The place where the trial was to come off was about half way between
the Academy and Mud Creek. It was in a small hall which was built for
lectures, public gatherings, tea meetings and so forth. It was now
turned into a court of law, and the awful Rhadamanthus who presided here
was a well-known and very popular villager, who, by some singular freak
of fortune, had been made a justice of the peace. His name was Pieter
Schwab, and he was of Dutch extraction. He was short, round, fat, had a
bald head, double chin, gray and somewhat fishy eyes, flaxen hair,
pudgy hands, thick, wheezy voice; and though born and brought up in the
country, he still spoke with that musical and mellifluous Dutch accent
which he had inherited from his ancestors.
As the party from the hill entered, they found Mr. Pieter Schwab,
justice of the peace, seated in the chair of justice. The prosecutor
was there too, with a large number of villagers, who took an intense
interest in the case; and when the boys crowded in, the little hall was
crammed.
One cause of the prosecution--indeed, the only cause--lay in a certain
kind of hostility which existed between the village and the hill. It
was a sort of “town and gown” feeling, which was not confined to the
village, but spread over the country, and particularly Gaspereaux. It
was this feeling which brought the villagers at the present time to the
court of Rhadamanthus. Still there was not so much partisanship on
this occasion as there would have been if the dispute had been directly
between the village and the hill; for Captain Corbet was the one who was
prosecuted, and Captain Corbet happened to be a great favorite in the
village. The villagers present were therefore very uncertain in their
sympathies; they wished the hill to be beaten, but they didn’t want
Captain Corbet to suffer. The loss of the Antelope, which seemed by this
time far gone to destruction, excited additional sympathy; and as his
venerable form appeared, a murmur of friendly feeling went round, and a
score of horny hands were stretched out to grasp his.
The suit against Captain Corbet was for the recovery of damages incurred
by the illegal, violent, malicious, injurious, felonious, dishonest,
malignant, mischievous, wanton, secret, forcible, burglarious, and
criminal removal of a portion of the stone wall surrounding the potato
field of the prosecutor, whereby the said prosecutor had sustained
grievous harm and loss. The prosecutor, in setting forth his grievances,
stated that it might have been made a criminal action, but out of
kindness to Captain Corbet he had decided to make it a civil one, and
merely wished to have the losses which he had suffered made good.
The bill of damages was a very heavy one, amounting to no less a sum
than five hundred dollars--an amount which poor Captain Corbet could
never have paid, and which was perfectly preposterous. The knowledge of
this excited a fresh demonstration of feeling in favor of the venerable
defendant; and, at length, even before the trial had fairly begun,
there was not a villager present who was not heart and soul in favor of
Captain Corbet.
The prosecutor brought forward testimony to prove damages. His sole
testimony consisted of one witness, who was known by the name of Old
Zeke--a poor worthless character, whose life vibrated between begging
and getting drunk. He swore that on a certain day he happened to be
down by the creek, and saw a horse in the field where the fence had been
removed.
Mr. Long proceeded to examine this witness. Mr. Long had a singularly
keen and acute mind, and the witness was nothing in his hands. Old
Zeke in a few minutes became so confused that he could not testify to
anything. He said first that the day was Tuesday, then Wednesday, then
Thursday, then he wouldn’t be sure but that it might be Friday, then
Saturday, and at length he wouldn’t swear but that it might have been
Sunday. Finally, he said that he wouldn’t swear to the day at all. After
this, he was so pressed by Mr. Long, that he thought that the horse
might have been a cow; and then he said he wouldn’t swear that it wasn’t
a sheep, or a goat, or a dog. Finally, Mr. Long asked him on his oath if
he would swear that it wasn’t a rat, and Old Zeke wouldn’t swear that it
wasn’t, a rat.
Old Zeke’s total discomfiture, however, was nothing to Mr. Long. It was
mere child’s play. He longed to close with a worthier antagonist--with
the prosecutor himself. The prosecutor swore that cattle had got into
his potato field, and had done damage which he had estimated at over
five hundred dollars.
Mr. Long now proceeded to grapple with the prosecutor.
Could he prove damages to the extent of five hundred dollars? He could,
all? And how? Could he prove that any cattle had got in? Had he himself
seen any cattle? No. No? Who, then, had seen them? Old Zeke. Old Zeke?
Very good.
Would the prosecutor be kind enough to state which of the cattle that
Old Zeke had seen had done the damage? Was it Old Zeke’s rat!
At this a roar of laughter arose from the spectators, who were now in
the highest state of excitement.
And what might have been the value of the potatoes planted there,--or
how much would it cost to replant them? Two dollars, or twenty? Over
how much ground had Old Zeke’s rat gone, and how many potatoes had Old
Zeke’s rat eaten? Would he swear that Old Zeke’s rat wouldn’t have eaten
the potatoes even if the wall had been standing? Would he swear that
it was possible for any one rat, in five or six days, to eat up five
hundred dollars’ worth of potatoes?
In a short time the prosecutor had got into an awful state of wrath and
confusion. But Mr. Long was merciless, and had made up his mind not to
spare him. So he rang the changes on Old Zeke’s rat and the potatoes
till all the assembly were convulsed with laughter, and the prosecutor
was purple with fury and bewilderment.
Then Mr. Long changed his tone to one of greater seriousness. Alluding
to the prosecutor’s oath; that the damage had amounted to five hundred
dollars, he questioned him with merciless severity as to how he had made
that estimate.
Had he dug up the potatoes to see if they had been injured?
No.
Had he ploughed up the field and sowed it again?
No.
The field remained, then, as it had been planted?
Yes.
On his oath, did he, or did he not, expect a crop of potatoes?
Yes.
How much was planted?
One acre.
How much would be raised?
About a hundred bushels.
How much would they fetch?
About fifty dollars.
Making allowance for expenses of digging, what would be the value?
About forty dollars.
All these replies were wrung out from the prosecutor only by extreme
pressure. He felt that he was in a bad position, and struggled hard
against it. His face grew red, and big drops of perspiration rolled down
over his forehead.
“Forty dollars!” Mr. Long thundered out. “And yet you swear to five
hundred dollars’ damage. You prosecute an aged, a virtuous, and an
estimable fellow-citizen, and you dare to take an oath against him to
such a frightful untruth! What is this? Is it malice, or what? But if
malice, what is there that could ever have been done against you by one
so simple-hearted and so true and honest as Captain Corbet?”
All this produced a tremendous effect, on the spectators, on the
prosecutor, and on Rhadamanthus.
But now Mr. Long came down harder than ever upon the unfortunate
prosecutor. He declared himself ready to prove that Captain Corbet never
took away the stone fence at all.
This was easily done.
First, every one of the boys was summoned to give his simple statement
of the facts. The whole truth came out, and it was clearly shown
that Captain Corbet must have been in total ignorance of the whole
transaction. To the testimony of the boys was added that of Mr. Simmons;
and he, with all the rest, alluded in touching terms to the occupation
of the captain while the stone wall was disappearing. Stone walls?
Captain Corbet? _He_ touch them? Why, he was nursing his baby at home
all the time!
As the boys came forward, one by one, Captain Corbet looked at them,
and listened in eager attention, with a smile of love on his meek and
venerable face. As they spoke of his absence from the scene, that smile
broadened into one of deeper affection; but finally, as they spoke of
his occupation, of his home, of that morning when they found him there
with his baby, it was too much. His heart beat fast,--a flood of tender
recollections thronged into his memory,--tears started to his eyes.
But what could he do?
Nothing.
He could only grasp the hands of those who stood nearest, and wring
them, and murmur broken words:--
“Yes, sir. That’s so. That’s all gospel truth. It’s jest so. I wasn’t
nigh the schewner. It was the babby. Him it was. I was a nussin of him,
an a feedin of him, an a singin an a hummin to him. An I knowed nothin
more about that thar stone wall than the man in the mune.”
And all these words of Captain Corbet, together with the simple
statements of the boys, combined to strengthen the convictions of the
villagers that the poor captain was a deeply injured man.
Now, of all these circumstances which tended to establish Captain
Corbet’s perfect freedom from all possible blame, Mr. Long was not
neglectful of a single one. He gathered them all up in his mind, and
after all the witnesses had been examined, prepared to hurl them
with tremendous force at the head of the miserable, and now almost
panic-stricken, prosecutor.
Mr. Long was a man of magnificent presence---tall, leonine in aspect,
and impressive in manner; he joined to these advantages a wonderful
acuteness of thought, and a copious flow of eloquent language. Besides,
he was stung by the cowardly act of the prosecutor, who attacked poor
Captain Corbet, instead of attacking himself, who was the real culprit,
if there were any culprit; and so he determined to read that man a
lesson which he would always remember, and prepared to pour out all the
full vials of his wrath upon his miserable head. No damage whatever had
been done, or could have been done. And yet this man tried to ruin
Captain Corbet out of petty spite. That was enough for Mr. Long.
He began by a severe review of the prosecutor’s statements, and a still
more severe criticism of his charges for damages. Old Zeke’s rat was
once more brought out for the benefit of the village audience, and light
jesting was mingled with scathing denunciation. Old Zeke himself did not
escape, and Mr. Long asked his hearers to judge what kind of a cause it
was, which had need of such a witness.
Then he showed the enormous difference between the utmost value of
the potatoes, even if all were spoiled, and the charge made by the
prosecutor. The fact that the prosecutor had sworn to five hundred
dollars’ damage was enlarged upon in indignant language, which accused
that prosecutor of nothing less than perjury.
Then, taking all these facts together, he sought for a motive, and
could find nothing else than extreme avarice or excessive malignity. And
against whom? Against Captain Corbet, one of our oldest, most virtuous,
most respected, and most venerable citizens; one whose character had
never before been impeached; one who was loved and revered by all; who
never had a quarrel, who had never made an enemy, and who had never
stood in a court of law before until this day.
At this there was an immense sensation. The boys and the villagers
mingled together in crowding near to Captain Corbet, in order to show
their sympathy with his unmerited woes.
“And who was Captain Corbet,” he asked, at length, “against whom this
ruinous charge had been made?” This was a question full of interest, for
it led him to consider the character of the defendant. He alluded to his
many virtues, his reputation, his popularity; he touched also, in gentle
terms, upon his recent loss in the destruction of the Antelope; and
by skilfully intermingling the excellences of Captain Corbet with his
afflictions, he excited still more the commiseration of his hearers.
Finally, he considered the testimony as to the actual occupation of
Captain Corbet while the fence was being taken away.
“He knew nothing whatever about it,” said Mr. Long,--“absolutely
nothing. He was not there. He was far away. Where was he? Where was this
man who has been, charged with being a trespasser and a thief? Where was
this man who has been accused of removing his neighbor’s landmarks, and
laying waste his neighbor’s fields? Where?”
Mr. Long paused for a moment, and his eyes looked all around over the
crowd, and finally settled upon the frightened face of the unhappy
prosecutor.
“Where was he?” repeated Mr. Long.
Again he paused, perhaps with a slight feeling of regard for the poor
prosecutor; perhaps, on the other hand, with a desire to make his speech
more effective; perhaps carried away by his own eloquence, and merely
seeking the most appropriate language with which to clothe his vehement
thoughts; perhaps because he faltered for an instant before he should
say what was in his mind to say.
“Where was he?” he repeated once more. “Where? Why, all the time
far away from the schooner, from the wharf, and from the stone wall;
ignorant of everything that was going on; thinking of far different
things--seated in his own house, on his own chair, by his own fireside.
Yes, alone; and engaged in what I have heard him call a parent’s fondest
joy! Not stealing arway a stone wall! No! but administering, in
the seclusion of his own home, to the necessities of his
offspring,--supplying nutriment to his--ah--infant--ah--in
fact,--ah--nursing with his own hands--his--ah--his baby!”
Mr. Long stopped abruptly. He saw Captain Corbet making a violent effort
to get near to him; but he avoided him, and the venerable navigator had
to pour out his feelings to others who stood nearer.
The end of it all was, that the case was dismissed, and the prosecutor
had to pay costs--though that was not much.
And Captain Corbet was for a short time the hero of the village and of
the hill. As he came forth they all cheered him with united voices; and
about two hundred, consisting of men and boys, shook hands with him.
And all the boys marched along with him nearly all the way to his home.
And then they went to the hill, and spent the remainder of the day in
discussing the famous trial.
And every one of them, from Bruce down to the smallest boy of the
primary department, was in a state of frenzy about Captain Corbet and
Mr. Long.