He began to count it out on the table. The money from the collection was in small silver coins and he selected the largest of them. He leaned over the table, his fingers in the hat, his defective eye close to the lamp. And the man standing before the altar, one half of his face in the shadow, one half discolored by the crimson birthmark dimly in the light, received the money. Two dollars and sixty cents in ten-cent pieces, three five-cent pieces, and one twenty-five cent piece. CHAPTER XVI |THEY took the School-teacher into the courthouse early in the morning. The county seat of this mountain county was nothing more than a village, lying in the foothills. The courthouse stood in a grove of oak trees, in the middle of the village. It was a two-story structure. On the ground floor was the jail in the custody of the sheriff. The second floor was the courthouse. This second story was entered exclusively from without. Broad stone steps led up to a portico, on which stood round, plaster-covered pillars supporting the projecting roof. On either side, entering between these pillars, were the offices of the county and circuit clerks. Beyond was the court room filled with benches. A portion of this room at the farther end was separated from the benches by a railing. Within it were chairs and two tables for attorneys, a desk for the clerk, and a raised platform, ascended by steps on either side, for the judge. It was the custom of the judges traveling on these mountain circuits to open court as early as eight o'clock in the morning, and before that, if they were come into the court room, to hear informally motions and the like. When they brought the School-teacher into the courthouse, the sheriff, the doctor, the minister, the old trustee who had ridden down out of the mountains in his cart, were already there. The deputy and Jonas led the Schoolteacher inside the railing. Then they sat down. The School-teacher remained standing. The hearing before the circuit judge followed the informal custom of these mountain circuits. The School-teacher made no defense. He stood before the bench. The early sunlight of the morning, entering through the high windows, fell on his face, on his soft brown hair, on his deep gray-blue eyes, on his clothing covered with the dust of the road. The judge heard the oral evidence in open court, He inquired into the service of the restraining order, and the prisoner's subsequent disregard of it. But he was not convinced. The prisoner's conduct seemed inconsistent with an intent to resist the State's title to these lands. Moreover, the silence, the calm demeanor, the strange personality of the prisoner, profoundly impressed him. He felt that some ulterior motive lay behind the cover of this accusation.