on't ye deny me the law! I _know_ the law don't 'low a magistrate an'
a jestice ter cuss in his high office, in the presence of the county
court. I want the law! I want the law!"

The chairman of the court, who had risen in his excitement, turning
eagerly first to one and then to the other of the speakers, striving to
silence the colloquy, and in the sudden surprise of it at a momentary
loss how to take action, sat down abruptly, and with a face of
consternation. Profanity seemed to him so usual and necessary an
incident of conversation that it had never occurred to him until this
moment that by some strange aberration from the rational estimate of
essentials it was entered in the code as a violation of law. He would
fain have overlooked it, but the room was crowded with spectators. The
chairman would be a candidate for re-election as justice of the peace at
the expiration of his term. And after all what was old Quimbey to him,
or he to old Quimbey, that, with practically the whole town looking on,
he should destroy his political prospects and disregard the dignity of
his office. He had a certain twinge of conscience, and a recollection of
the choice and fluent oaths of his own repertory, but as he turned over
the pages of the code in search of the section he deftly argued that
they were uttered in his own presence as a person, not as a justice.

And so for the first time old Joel Quimbey appeared as a law-breaker,
and was duly fined by the worshipful county court fifty cents for each
oath, that being the price at which the State rates the expensive and
impious luxury of swearing in the hearing of a justice of the peace, and
which in its discretion the court saw fit to adopt in this instance.

The old man offered no remonstrance; he said not a word in his own
defence. He silently drew out his worn wallet, with much contortion of
his thin old anatomy in getting to his pocket, and paid his fines on the
spot. Absalom had already left the room, the clerk having made out the
certificates, the chairman of the court casting the scalps into the open
door of the stove, that they might be consumed by fire according to law.

The young mountaineer wore a heavy frown, and his heart was ill at ease.
He sought some satisfaction in the evident opinion of the crowd which
now streamed out, for the excitements within were over, that he had done
a fine thing; a very clever thought, they considered it, to demand the
law of Mr. Chairman, t