s body. All the
wit of Hudibras could not have moved a muscle of his face. His
conscience would have smitten him for a laugh almost as soon as for an
oath. His hair was roached up, and stood as erect and upright as his
body; and his voice was slow, deep, in "linked sweetness long drawn
out," and modulated according to the camp-meeting standard of elocution.
Three such men at a country frolic would have turned an old Virginia
reel into a dead march. He was one of Carlyle's earnest men. Cromwell
would have made him ensign of the Ironsides, and _ex-officio_ chaplain
at first sight. He took out his pocket-handkerchief, slowly unfolded it
from the shape in which it came from the washerwoman's, and awaited the
interrogation. As he waited, he spat on the floor, and nicely wiped it
out with his foot. The solicitor told him to tell about the difficulty
in hand. He gazed around on the court, then on the bar, then on the
jury, then on the crowd, addressing each respectively as he turned: "May
it please your honor, gentlemen of the bar, gentlemen of the jury,
audience: Before proceeding to give my testimonial observations, I must
premise that I am a member of the Methodist Episcopal, otherwise called
Wesleyan, persuasion of Christian individuals. One bright Sabbath
morning in May, the 15th day of the month, the past year, while the
birds were singing their matutinal songs from the trees, I sallied forth
from the dormitory of my seminary to enjoy the reflections so well
suited to that auspicious occasion. I had not proceeded far before my
ears were accosted with certain Bacchanalian sounds of revelry, which
proceeded from one of those haunts of vicious depravity located at the
cross-roads, near the place of my boyhood, and fashionably denominated a
doggery. No sooner had I passed beyond the precincts of this diabolical
rendezvous of rioting debauchees, than I heard behind me the sounds of
approaching footsteps, as if in pursuit. Having heard previously sundry
menaces, which had been made by these preposterous and incarnadine
individuals of hell, now on trial in prospect of condign punishment,
fulminated against the longer continuance of my corporeal salubrity, for
no better reason than that I reprobated their criminal orgies, and not
wishing my reflections to be disturbed, I hurried my steps with a
gradual accelerated motion. Hearing, however, their continued advance,
and the repeated shoutings, articulating the murderous accents, 'Ki