hief
question for the jury was as to the credibility of the witnesses. If the
witnesses for the prosecution were truthful and were not mistaken, the
inference of guilt seemed inevitable; this the defendant's counsel had
conceded. The defendant had proved a good reputation; upon that point
there was only this to be said: that, while such evidence was entitled
to weight, yet, on the other hand, crimes involving a breach of trust
could, from their very nature, be committed only by persons whose good
reputations secured them positions of trust.

The jury-room had evidently not been furnished by a ring. It had a long
table for debate, twelve hard chairs for repose, twelve spittoons for
luxury, and a clock.

The jury sat in silence for a few moments, as old Captain Nourse, who
had them in his keeping, and eyed them as if he was afraid that he might
lose one of them in a crack and be held accountable on his bond, rattled
away at the unruly lock. Looking at them then, you would have seen faces
all of a New England cast but one. There was a tall, powerful negro
called George Washington, a man well known in this county town, to which
he had come, as driftwood from the storm of war, in '65. Some of the
"boys" had heard him, in a great prayer-meeting in Washington--a city
which he always spoke of as his "namesake"--at the time of the great
review, say, in his strong voice, with that pathetic quaver in it: "Like
as de parched an' weary traveller hangs his harp upon de winder, an'
sighs for oysters in de desert, so I longs to res' my soul an' my
foot in Mass'-chusetts;" and they were so delighted with him that they
invited him on the spot to go home with them, and took up a collection
to pay his fare; and so he was a public character. As for his
occupation,--when the census-taker, with a wink to the boys in the
store, had asked him what it was, he had said, in that same odd tone:
"Putties up glass a little--whitewashes a little--" and, when the man
had made a show of writing all that down, "preaches a little." He might
have said, "preaches a big," for you could hear him half a mile away.

The foreman was a retired sea-captain. "Good cap'n--Cap'n Thomas," one
of his neighbors had said of him. "Allers gits good ships--never hez to
go huntin' 'round for a vessel. But it is astonishin' what differences
they is! Now there 's Cap'n A. K. P. Bassett, down to the West Harbor.
You let it git 'round that Cap'n A. K. P. is goin' off on a Chin