But we shall try our
case before a simple jury, which will be flax in the hands of one lawyer
in that state, if we can secure him; but hitherto he has refused my
contractor, and will not take the case."
"Why," said the Judge, "you must mean Clayton, the new senator."
"That is the man," Milburn continued, stopping for strength and breath.
"He is finely educated, I hear, at the colleges and law schools, and
possesses a remarkable power over the agricultural and mixed races of
that small state, whom he thoroughly understands by sympathy and
acquaintance. I heard him once in court, at Georgetown, wither and
confound the confederated kidnapping influences of the whole peninsula,
and, against the will and intention of the jury, prevail upon their
fears and sensibilities to find a bold rogue guilty of stealing free
men; of color--a rogue who was in this room, unless it is a delusion of
my fever, this very day, and with whom I fancied I had been in collision
somewhere."
"You only knocked him down with a brick, after Samson had done it with
his fist, and then the fellow came to me for shelter, afraid you would
pursue him at law, and I suppose he did an errand for my servants to
this abode."
The Judge looked around upon the abode as if he had used the most
respectable word he could possibly apply to it.
"I will compromise with such scoundrels as that one," Milburn spoke,
"only when I am afraid of them.
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