56 The Devil and Daniel Webster

Parag 01
Parag 02
Parag 03
Parag 04
Parag 05
Parag 06
Parag 07
Parag 08
Parag 09
Parag 10
Parag 11
Parag 12
Parag 13
Parag 14
Parag 15
Parag 16
Parag 17
Parag 18
Parag 19
Parag 20
Parag 21
Parag 21
Parag 22
Parag 23
Parag 24
Parag 25
Parag 26
Parag 27
Parag 28
Parag 29
Parag 30
Parag 31
Parag 32
Parag 33
Parag 34
Parag 35
Parag 36
Parag 37
Parag 38
Parag 39
Parag 40
Parag 41
Parag 42
Parag 43
Parag 44
Parag 45
Parag 46
Parag 47
Parag 48
Parag 49
Parag 50
Parag 51
Parag 52
Parag 53
Parag 54
Parag 55
........
Parag 29
  _
"Aha!" said Dan'l Webster, with the veins standing out in his
forehead. "Then I stand on the Constitution! I demand a trial
for my client!"   _

"The case is hardly one for an ordinary court," said the
stranger, his eyes flickering. "And, indeed, the lateness of   _
the hour ------"

"Let it be any court you choose, so it is an American judge   _
and an American jury!" said Dan'l Webster in his pride. "Let
it be the quick or the dead; I'll abide the issue!"
........
Parag 30
  _
"You have said it," said the stranger, and pointed his finger
at the door. And with that, and all of a sudden, there was a
rushing of wind outside and a noise of footsteps. They came,   _
clear and distinct, through the night. And yet, they were not
like the footsteps of living men.
  _
"In God's name, who comes by so late?" cried Jabez Stone, in
an ague of fear.
  _
"The jury Mr. Webster demands," said the stranger, sipping at
his boiling glass. "You must pardon the rough appearance of
one or two; they will have come a long way."   _

And with that the fire burned blue and the door blew open and
twelve men entered, one by one.
........
Parag 31
  _
If Jabez Stone had been sick with terror before, he was blind
with terror now. For there was Walter Butler, the Loyalist,
who spread fire and horror through the Mohawk Valley in the   _
times of the Revolution; and there was Simon Girty, the
renegade, who saw white men burned at the stake and whooped
with the Indians to see them burn. His eyes were green, like a   _
catamount's, and the stains on his hunting shirt did not come
from the blood of the deer. King Philip was there, wild and
proud as he had been in life, with the great gash in his head   _
that gave him his death wound, and cruel Governor Dale, who
broke men on the wheel. There was Morton of Merry Mount, who
so vexed the Plymouth Colony, with his flushed, loose,   _
handsome face and his hate of the godly. There was Teach, the
bloody pirate, with his black beard curling on his breast. The
Reverend John Smeet, with his strangler's hands and his Geneva   _
gown, walked as daintily as he had to the gallows. The red
print of the rope was still around his neck, but he carried a
perfumed handkerchief in one hand. One and all, they came into   _
the room with the fires of hell still upon them, and the
stranger named their names and their deeds as they came, till
the tale of twelve was told. Yet the stranger had told the   _
truth --- they had all played a part in America.
........
Parag 32
  _
"Are you satisfied with the jury, Mr. Webster?" said the
stranger mockingly, when they had taken their places.
  _
The sweat stood upon Dan'l Webster's brow, but his voice was
clear.
  _
"Quite satisfied," he said. "Though I miss General Arnold from
the company."
  _
"Benedict Arnold is engaged upon other business," said the
stranger, with a glower. "Ah, you asked for justice, I
believe."
........
Parag 33
  _
He pointed his finger once more, and a tall man, soberly clad
in Puritan garb, with the burning gaze of the fanatic, stalked
into the room and took his judge's place.
........
Parag 34
  _
"Justice Hathorne is a jurist of experience," said the
stranger. "He presided at certain witch trials once held in
Salem. There were others who repented of the business later,   _
but not he."

"Repent of such notable wonders and undertakings?" said the   _
stern old justice. "Nay, hang them ---- hang them all!" And he
muttered to himself in a way that struck ice into the soul of
Jabez Stone.   _

Then the trial began, and, as you might expect, it didn't look
anyways good for the defense. And Jabez Stone didn't make much   _
of witness in his own behalf. He took one look at Simon Girty
and screeched, and they had to put him back in his corner in a
kind of swoon.
........
Parag 35
  _
It didn't halt the trial, though; the trial went on, as trials
do. Dan'l Webster had faced some hard juries and hanging
judges in his time, but this was the hardest he'd ever faced,   _
and he knew it. They sat there with a kind of glitter in their
eyes, and the stranger's smooth voice went on and on. Every
time he'd raise an objection, it'd be "Objection sustained,"   _
but whenever Dan'l objected, it'd be "Objection denied." Well,
you couldn't expect fair play from a fellow like this Mr.
Scratch.
........
Parag 36
  _
It got to Dan'l in the end, and he began to heat, like iron in
the forge. When he got up to speak he was going to flay that
stranger with every trick known to the law, and the judge and   _
jury too. He didn't care if it was contempt of court or what
would happen to him for it. He didn't care any more what
happened to Jabez Stone. He just got madder and madder,   _
thinking of what he'd say. And yet, curiously enough, the more
he thought about it, the less he was able to arrange his
speech in his mind.
........
Parag 37
  _
Till, finally, it was time for him to get up on his feet, and
he did so, all ready to bust out with lightning and
denunciations. But before he started he looked over the judge   _
and jury for a moment, such being his custom. And he noticed
the glitter in their eyes was twice as strong as before, and
they all leaned forward. Like hounds just before they get the   _
fox, they thickened as he watched them. Then he saw what he'd
been about to do, and he wiped his forehead, as a man might
who's just escaped falling into a pit in the dark.
........
Parag 38
  _
For it was him they'd come for, not only Jabez Stone. He read
it in the glitter of their eyes and in the way the stranger
hid his mouth with one hand. And if he fought them with their   _
own weapons, he'd fall into their power; he knew that, though
he couldn't have told you how. It was his own anger and horror
that burned in their eyes; and he'd have to wipe that out or   _
the case was lost. He stood there for a moment, his black eyes
burning like anthracite. And then he began to speak.
........
Parag 39
  _
He started off in a low voice, though you could hear every
word. They say he could call on the harps of the blessed when
he chose. And this was just as simple and easy as a man could   _
talk. But he didn't start out by condemning or reviling. He
was talking about the things that make a country a country,
and a man a man.
........
Parag 40
  _
And he began with the simple things that everybody's known and
felt ---- the freshness of a fine morning when you're young,
and the taste of food when you're hungry, and the new day   _
that's every day when you're a child. He took them up and he
turned them in his hands. They were good things for any man.
But without freedom, they sickened. And when he talked of   _
those enslaved, and the sorrows of slavery, his voice got like
a big bell. He talked of the early days of America and the
men who had made those days. It wasn't a spread-eagle speech,   _
but he made you see it. He admitted all the wrong that had
ever been done. But he showed how, out of the wrong and the
right, the suffering and the starvations, something new had   _
come. And everybody had played a part in it, even the
traitors.
........
Parag 41
  _
Then he turned to Jabez Stone and showed him as he was ---- an
ordinary man who'd had hard luck and wanted to change it.
And, because he'd wanted to change it, now he was going to be   _
punished for all eternity. And yet there was good in Jabez
Stone, and he showed that good. He was hard and mean, in some
ways, but he was a man. There was sadness in being a man, but   _
it was a proud thing too. And he showed what the pride of it
was till you couldn't help feeling it. Yes, even in hell, if
a man was a man, you'd know it. and he wasn't pleading for   _
any one person any more, though his voice rang like an organ.
He was telling the story and the failures and the endless
journey of mankind. They got tricked and trapped and   _
bamboozled, but it was a great journey. And no demon that was
ever foaled could know the inwardness of it ---- it took a man
to do that.
........
Parag 42
  _
The fire began to die on the hearth and the wind before
morning to blow. The light was getting gray in the room when
Dan'l Webster finished. And his words came back at the end to   _
New Hampshire ground, and the one spot of land that each man
loves and clings to. He painted a picture of that, and to
each one of that jury he spoke of things long forgotten. For   _
his voice could search the heart, and that was his gift and
his strength. And to one, his voice was like the forest and
its secrecy, and to another like the sea and the storms of the   _
sea; and one heard the cry of his lost nation in it, and
another saw a little harmless scene he hadn't remembered for
years. But each saw something. And when Dan'l Webster   _
finished he didn't know whether or not he'd saved Jabez Stone.
But he knew he'd done a miracle. For the glitter was gone
from the eyes of the judge and jury, and, for the moment, they   _
were men again, and knew they were men.