Judge Webster had the satisfaction of hearing his son make one speech in court, but he was so near the end of his earthly pilgrimage that he never heard another, being for the last few months confined within doors. The father listened with satisfaction, and regarded his son’s effort as a very creditable one. Daniel’s sole object in establishing himself in an obscure country place was to be near his father, who he knew could not live many years. The end was nearer than he supposed, for he died little more than a year later. It may have been a sacrifice, but probably he lost nothing by it. The quiet seclusion gave him more time for study, and he was laying a broad groundwork for his future fame to rest upon. It was while he was at Boscawan that he first encountered Mr. Jeremiah Mason, the acknowledged head of the New Hampshire bar. From a foot-note in Curtis’s Life, I quote the circumstances as told by Mr. Mason himself. “I had heard,” said Mr. Mason,” that there was a young lawyer up there who was reputed to be a wonderfully able fellow, and was said by the country people to be as black as the ace of spades, but I had never seen him. When they told me that he had prepared evidence for this prosecution (it was a case of forgery, the defendant being a man of respectable position), I thought it well to be careful, especially as the trial was to be conducted by the attorney-general. But when the trial came on the attorney-general was ill, and the prosecutors asked that Webster should be allowed to conduct the case. I assented to this readily, thinking I ought to have an easy time of it, and we were introduced to each other. “We went at it, and I soon found that I had no light work on my hands. He examined his witnesses and shaped his case with so much skill that I had to exert every faculty I possessed. I got the man off, but it was as hard a day’s work as I ever did in my life. There were other transactions behind this one which looked quite as awkward. When the verdict was announced I went up to the dock and whispered to the prisoner, as the sheriff let him out, to be off for Canada, and never to put himself within the reach of that young Webster again. From that time forth I never lost sight of Mr. Webster, and never had but one opinion of his powers.” This is remarkable testimony from the head of the bar to a practitioner so young, who was a mere novice in the profession.