Part 30 (2/2)

”I thank you kindly, Colonel Price, but I already et, long ago, what little I had stomach for,” said she.

”Then if you will excuse me for a moment, madam?” begged the colonel, seeing her seated stiffly in an upholstered chair.

She half rose in acknowledgment of his bow, awkward and embarra.s.sed.

”You're excusable, sir,” said she.

The colonel dashed away down the hall. She was only a mountain woman, certainly, but she was a lady by virtue of having been a gentleman's wife. And she had caught him without a coat!

Mrs. Newbolt sat stiffly in the parlor in surroundings which were of the first magnitude of grandeur to her, with corn pictures adorning the walls along with some of the colonel's early transgressions in landscapes, and the portraits of colonels in the family line who had gone before. That was the kind of fixings Joe would like, thought she, nodding her serious head; just the kind of things that Joe would enjoy and understand, like a gentleman born to it.

”Well, he comes by it honest,” said she aloud.

Colonel Price did not keep her waiting long. He came back in a black coat that was quite as grand as Judge Little's, and almost as long. That garment was the mark of fas.h.i.+on and gentility in that part of the country in those days, a style that has outlived many of the hearty old gentlemen who did it honor, and has descended even to this day with their sons.

”My son's innocent of what they lay to him, Colonel Price,” said Mrs.

Newbolt, with impressive dignity which lifted her immediately in the colonel's regard.

Even an inferior woman could not a.s.sociate with a superior man that long without some of his gentility pa.s.sing to her, thought he. Colonel Price inclined his head gravely.

”Madam, Peter Newbolt's son never would commit a crime, much less the crime of murder,” he said, yet with more sincerity in his words, perhaps, than lay in his heart.

”I only ask you to hold back your decision on him till you can learn the truth,” said she, unconsciously pa.s.sing over the colonel's declaration of confidence. ”You don't remember Joe maybe, for he was only a little shaver the last time you stopped at our house when you was canva.s.sin'

for office. That's been ten or 'leven--maybe more--years ago. Joe, he's growed considerable since then.”

”They do, they shoot up,” said the colonel encouragingly.

”Yes; but Joe he's nothing like me. He runs after his father's side of the family, and he's a great big man in size now, Colonel Price; but he's as soft at heart as a dove.”

So she talked on, telling him what she knew. When she had finished laying the case of Joe before him, the colonel sat thinking it over a bit, one hand in his beard, his head slightly bowed. Mrs. Newbolt watched him with anxious eyes. Presently he looked at her and smiled. A great load of uncertainty went up from her heart in a sigh.

”The first thing to do is to get him a lawyer, and the best one we can nail,” the colonel said.

She nodded, her face losing its worried tension.

”And the next thing is for Joe to make a clean breast of everything, holding back nothing that took place between him and Isom that night.”

”I'll tell him to do it,” said she eagerly, ”and I know he will when I tell him you said he must.”

”I'll go over to the sheriff's with you and see him,” said the colonel, avoiding the use of the word ”jail” with a delicacy that was his own.

”I'm beholden to you, Colonel Price, for all your great kindness,” said she.

There had been no delay in the matter of returning an indictment against Joe. The grand jury was in session at that time, opportunely for all concerned, and on the day that Joe was taken to the county jail the case was laid before that body by the prosecuting attorney. Before the grand jury adjourned that day's business a true bill had been returned against Joe Newbolt, charging him with the murder of Isom Chase.

There was in Shelbyville at that time a lawyer who had mounted to his profession like a conqueror, over the heads of his fellow-townsmen as stepping-stones. Perhaps it would be nearer the mark to say that the chins of the men of Shelbyville were the rungs in this ladder, for the lawyer had risen from the barber's chair. He had shaved and sheared his way from that ancient trade, in which he had been respected as an able hand, to the equally ancient profession, in which he was cutting a rather ludicrous and lumbering figure.

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