Back Home by Irvin S. Cobb

"MISTER SHERIFF," ordered the judge, "bring Pressley G. Harper to the bar."

Judge Priest, as I may have set forth before, had two habits of speech -- one purposely ungrammatical and thickly larded with the vernacular of the country crossroads -- that was for his private walks and conversations, and for his campaignings; but the other was of good and proper and dignified English, and it he reserved for official acts and utterances. Whether upon the bench or off it, though, his voice had that high-pitched, fiddle-string note which carried far and clearly; and on this day, when he spoke, the sheriff roused up instantly from where he had been enjoying forty winks between the bewhittled arms of a tilted chair and bestirred himself. He hurried out of a side door. A little, whispering, hunching stir went through the courtroom. Spectators reclining upon the benches, partly on their spines and partly on their shoulderblades, straightened and bent forward. Inside the rail, which set apart the legal goats from the civic sheep, a score of eyes were fixed speculatively upon the judge's face, rising above the top of the tall, scarred desk where he sat; but his face gave no dew to his thoughts; and if the mind back of the beneficent, mild blue eyes was troubled, the eyes themselves looked out unvexed through the steel-bowed spectacles that rode low on the old judge's nose.