"Now, Limuel, you know you are makin' up every word of that." "It's the truth, I tell you--knowed the man well." "Well, who was he?" "Oh, he lived away over yonder on the branch, out of your range." "He didn't live anywhere; that's the truth of it." "But, Susan, he might have lived anywhere. His name is man and his wife's name is woman. What, you goin' to cry about it? Now, there, it's all right. No, there never was such a man. I'm an old liar, that's what's the matter with me. Never was a man fitten to live with a good woman. Why, bless your life, what would I be without you? Why, you've been the makin' of me. And a long time ago, when I used to drink licker and fight, you'd set up and wait for me and you never scolded me, and that very fact turned me agin licker, for I jest nachully thought that it was too much work for you to keep up a show of good humor all the time. Yes, it's all right, and that boy's comin' out of there without a scar on him, and I'll pay back the money that I owe the General----" He hastened out of the room, and we heard him yelling at his chickens. CHAPTER XIV. I went to town every day, and every night I returned, self-charged with hope; and now the trial was at hand. When the work of impaneling the jury was begun, old Conkwright was there with his challenges. How shrewd he was, how sharp were his eyes. And when night came the panel was far from complete. "It will take a long time at this rate," I said, as we were leaving the court-room. "I don't care if it takes a thousand years; they sha'n't ring in a stuffed toad on me," replied the ex-judge. "Did you notice that fellow with a long neck? They've fixed him all right and I knew it. I am not altogether easy about that short fellow we've got, but I hope he is man enough to be honest. There is no more trickery anywhere than there is in a murder trial in this country. Well, they've put their worst men forward, and I think we shall have better material to-morrow." And it appeared that we had, for the jury was sworn in the next afternoon. The testimony was so short and so direct, the witnesses were so few that the trial could not last long; and when at home I gave this as an opinion, the old people were glad, for they declared that it shortened the time of their son's absence. On the day set for the opening of the argument hundreds of the farmers gave over their work and rode to town, for the Southerner loves a passionate speech, and the court-house is still his theater. The old man walked down the road with me, but he stopped before we reached the place where Stuart had been stretched upon the ground. "Well," he said, turning back, "I reckon to-day'll finish it. At least they'll give it to the jury and it oughten't to take 'em long after what the judge says in his charge to 'em. I feel that it's goin' to be all right. Don't you?"