"Young {050}chaps, give ear, the case is clear. You, Silas
Fixings, you
Pay Mister Nehemiali Dodge them dollars as you're due.
You are a bloody cheat,--you are. But spite of all your
tricks, it
Is not in you Judge Lynch to do. No! nohow you can
fix it!"
Thus {051}spake Judge Lynch, as there he sat in Alabama's
forum,
Around he gazed, with legs upraised upon the bench before
him;
And, as he gave this sentence stern to him who stood
beneath,
Still with his gleaming bowie-knife he slowly picked his
teeth.
It was high noon, the month was June, and sultry was the
air,
A cool gin-sling stood by his hand, his coat hung o'er his
chair;
All naked were his manly arms, and shaded by his hat,
Like an old senator of Rome that simple Archon sat.
"A bloody cheat?--Oh, legs and feet!" in wrath young
Silas cried;
And springing high into the air, he jerked his quid
aside.
"No man shall put my dander up, or with my feelings
trifle,
As long as Silas Fixings wears a bowie-knife and rifle."
"If your shoes pinch," replied Judge Lynch, "you'll very,
soon have ease;
I'll give you satisfaction, squire, in any way you please;
What are your weapons?--knife or gun?--at both I'm
pretty spry!"
"Oh! 'tarnal death, you're spry, you are?" quoth Silas;
"so am I!"
Hard by the town a forest stands, dark with the shades
of time,
And they have sought that forest dark at morning's early
prime;
Lynch, backed by Nehemiah Dodge, and Silas with a
friend,
And half the town in glee came down to see that contest's
end.
They led their men two miles apart, they measured out
the ground;
A belt of that, vast wood it was, they notched the trees
around;
Into the tangled brake they turned them off, and neither
knew
Where he should seek his wagered foe, how get him into
view.
[Illustration: 065]
With {053}stealthy tread, and stooping head,
from tree to tree they passed,
They crept beneath the crackling furze, they
held their rifles fast:
Hour passed on hour, the noonday sun
smote fiercely down, but yet
No sound to the expectant crowd proclaimed
that they had met.
And now the sun was going down, when,
hark! a rifle's crack!
Hush--hush! another strikes the air,--and
all their breath draw back,--
Then crashing on through bush and briar,
the crowd from either side
Rush in to see whose rifle sure with blood
the moss has dyed.
Weary {054}with watching up and down, brave Lynch con-
ceived a plan,
An artful dodge whereby to take at unawares his man;
He hung his hat upon a bush, and hid himself hard by;
Young Silas thought he had him fast, and at the hat let
fly.
It fell; up sprang young Silas,--he hurled his gun
away;
Lynch fixed him with his rifle, from the ambush where he
lay.
The bullet pierced his manly breast--yet, valiant to the
last,
Young Fixings drew his bowie-knife, and up his foxtail *
cast.
* The Yankee substitute for the _chapeau de soie_.
With tottering step and glazing eye he cleared the space
between,
And stabbed the air as stabs in grim Macbeth the younger
Kean:
Brave Lynch received him with a bang that stretched him
on the ground,
Then sat himself serenely down till all the crowd drew
round.
They {055}hailed him with triumphant cheers--in him each
loafer saw
The bearing bold that could uphold the majesty of law;
And, raising him aloft, they bore him homewards at his
ease,--
That noble judge, whose daring hand enforced his own
decrees.
They buried Silas Fixings in the hollow where he fell,
And gum-trees wave above his grave--that tree he loved
so well;
And the 'coons sit chattering o'er him when the nights are
long and damp;
But he sleeps well in that lonely dell, the Dreary 'Possum
Swamp.