Bart Ridgeley: A Story of Northern OhioRiddle, A. G. (Albert Gallatin)
General
Bart Ridgeley: A Story of Northern Ohio
Riddle, A. G. (Albert Gallatin)
Ohio -- Fiction
When Bart arose to reply, he seemed to stand a foot taller than he
ever appeared before. Calmly and in a suppressed voice he restated
his case, and, with a few well--directed blows, demolished the legal
aspects of the defence. He then turned upon his opponent; no restraint
was on him now. He did not descend to his level, but cut and thrust
and flayed him from above. Even the Newbury mob could now see the
difference between wit and vulgarity, and were made to understand that
coarseness and abuse were not strength. His address to the court was
superb; and when he finally turned to the jury, with a touching sketch
of the helplessness of the plaintiff, and of the lawless violence
of the defendants, who had long been a nuisance, and had now become
dangerous to peace and good order, and submitted the case, the crowd
looked and heard with open-mouthed wonder. Had a little summer cloud
come down, with thunder, lightning and tempest, they would not have
been more amazed. When he ceased, a murmur, which ran into applause,
broke from the cool, acute, observing and thinking New Englanders and
their children, who were present.
Judge Markham promptly repressed the disorder, and in a few words gave
the case to the jury, who at once returned a verdict for the largest
amount within the court's jurisdiction; judgment was promptly
rendered, execution for the bodies of the defendants issued, and they
were arrested.
The excitement had now become intense. 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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