"Yes," said Tom, "and stay for five years, if necessary, to get enough gold to buy a home----" "For Ida and the cherubs?" said Toney. "What noise is that in the wood?" exclaimed Tom. "Two drunken men quarreling over an empty bottle," said Toney. They now entered the wood and proceeded in the direction of the noise. "Stop!" said Tom. "Look yonder!" Toney looked in the direction indicated, and beheld the robust form of M. T. Pate perched upon a stump, his arms and legs in violent motion, and words rolling from his lips with amazing volubility. "What is he doing?" said Tom, "Has he gone mad?" "No; he is practicing oratory; it is a rehearsal," said Toney. "How would he look if we were to go up and speak to him?" said Tom. "Like an unfortunate dog taken in the act of assassinating a sheep," said Toney. "Don't let him see us. Listen! What's that he is saying?" "Something about the Widow Wild," said Tom. "Hear that! He says she has a heart of flint." "Calls her a harpy," said Toney. "It's well for him the widow does not hear him," said Tom. "What's it all about?" "Pate's client has stolen the widow's hog, and the lawyer is getting ready to abuse the owner of the property. Hark! What's that?" There was a noise in the bushes, and two men sprang out with clubs in their hands, and ran towards Pate, loudly shouting,-- "Here he is! Catch him! catch him!" Pate looked around, and then leaped from the stump and fled through the wood with the speed of a frightened antelope. "Stop! stop! Halt! halt!" cried Toney and Tom. The men halted, and coming towards them, were recognized as two laborers employed on the Widow Wild's estate. "What were you going to do?" asked Toney. "Give that fellow a good beating," said one of the men. "What has he been doing?" inquired Tom. "He comes here every day and gets on that stump, and abuses the Widow Wild, who is as nice a woman as a man ever worked for, and we won't stand it! So we cut these clubs and lay in the bushes for him." "You had better let him alone," said Toney. "He is a lawyer." "Let him come here again!" said one of the men. "Even if he was a priest!" said the other. "What would you do?" asked Toney. "Break every bone in his body!" said the man, brandishing his club. And with this emphatic declaration of their intentions, the men returned to their work, while Toney and Tom proceeded on their way to the residence of the Widow Wild. CHAPTER XXIX. The frequent delivery of his elaborate speech, before an audience of feathered bipeds and amphibious quadrupeds, had fully prepared M. T. Pate for the day of trial. On the morning of that eventful day he was seen seated in court with a grave aspect, which indicated that he sensibly felt the weight of the tremendous responsibility which rested upon him.