Here were half a score of young
men in the hands of the law, under orders to be committed to jail. No
one remembered such a case in Newbury. Breaches of the law, in that
usually orderly community, were unknown, until the acts which gave
rise to this suit, and some fainter demonstrations of the same
character. The poor youths and their friends gathered helpless and
anxious about Brace, who could suggest nothing. Finally, Barton came
forward, and offered to take the promissory notes of the parties and
their fathers, for the amount of the judgment and costs, and release
them from arrest, which offer they gladly accepted, with many thanks
to their prosecutor; and the blow which he thus dealt was the end of
disorder in Newbury.
For the time being Cole was left at peace, and enjoyed more
consideration than had ever been conceded to him before. He was
destined, however, not long after, to appear in the higher court,
to defend the doubtful title of his property, as will appear in the
progress of this narrative.
As a general rule, the people of new communities are more curious
and interested in law--suits, and trials, and lawyers, than in
almost anything else to which their attention can be called. Lawyers,
especially, are the objects of their admiration and astonishment.
Unaccustomed to mental labor, conscious of an inability to perform it,
and justly regarding it as holding the first place in human effort,
the power and skill to conduct and maintain a long-continued mental
conflict, to pursue and examine witnesses, answer questions as well as
ask them, make and meet objections, make impromptu speeches and argue
difficult propositions, and, finally, to deliver off-hand, an
address of hours in length, full of argument, illustration, sometimes
interspersed with humor, wit, and pathos, and sometimes really
eloquent, is by them always regarded, and not without reason, as a
marvel that cannot be witnessed without astonishment.
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