about it.”
“When was that?”
“Saturday night, September 9th.”
The judge he spoke up and says:
“Mr. Sheriff, arrest these two witnesses on suspicions
of being accessionary after the fact to the murder.”
The lawyer for the prostitution jumps up all excited,
and says:
“Your honor! I protest against this extraordi –”
“Set down!” says the judge, pulling his bowie and
laying it on his pulpit. “I beg you to respect the
Court.”
So he done it. Then he called Bill Withers.
BILL WITHERS, sworn, said: “I was coming along
about sundown, Saturday, September 2d, by the
prisoner’s field, and my brother Jack was with me
and we seen a man toting off something heavy on
his back and allowed it was a nigger stealing
corn; we couldn’t see distinct; next we made out
that it was one man carrying another; and the way
it hung, so kind of limp, we judged it was
somebody that was drunk; and by the man’s walk we
said it was Parson Silas, and we judged he had
found Sam Cooper drunk in the road, which he was
always trying to reform him, and was toting him
out of danger.”
It made the people shiver to think of poor old Uncle
Silas toting off the diseased down to the place in his
tobacker field where the dog dug up the body, but
there warn’t much sympathy around amongst the faces,
and I heard one cuss say “‘Tis the coldest blooded
work I ever struck, lugging a murdered man around
like that, and going to bury him like a animal, and him
a preacher at that.”
Tom he went on thinking, and never took no notice;
so our lawyer took the witness and done the best he
could, and it was plenty poor enough.
Then Jack Withers he come on the stand and told the
same tale, just like Bill done.
And after him comes Brace Dunlap, and he was look-
ing very mournful, and most crying; and there was a
rustle and a stir all around, and everybody got ready to
listen, and lost of the women folks said, “Poor cretur,
poor cretur,” and you could see a many of them wip-
ing their eyes.
BRACE DUNLAP, sworn, said: “I was in considerable
trouble a long time about my poor brother, but I
reckoned things warn’t near so bad as he made out,
and I couldn’t make myself believe anybody would
have the heart to hurt a poor harmless cretur like
that” — [by jings, I was sure I seen Tom give a
kind of a faint little start, and then look
disappointed again] — “and you know I COULDN’T
think a preacher would hurt him — it warn’t natural
to think such an onlikely thing — so I never paid
much attention, and now I sha’n’t ever, ever
forgive myself; for if I had a done different, my
poor brother would be with me this day, and not
laying yonder murdered, and him so harmless.” He
kind of broke down there and choked up, and waited
to get his voice; and people all around said the
most pitiful things, and women cried; and it was
very still in there, and solemn, and old Uncle Silas,
poor thing, he give a groan right out so everybody
heard him. Then Brace he went on, “Saturday,
September 2d, he didn’t come home to supper.
By-and-by I got a little uneasy, and one of my
niggers went over to this prisoner’s place, but come
back and said he warn’t there. So I got uneasier
and uneasier, and couldn’t rest. I went to bed, but
I couldn’t sleep; and turned out, away late in the
night, and went wandering over to this prisoner’s
place and all around about there a good while, hoping
I would run across my poor brother, and never
knowing he was out of his troubles and gone to a
better shore –” So he broke down and choked up again,
and most all the women was crying now. Pretty soon
he got another start and says: “But it warn’t no use;
so at last I went home and tried to get some sleep,
but couldn’t. Well, in a day or two everybody was