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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Sheriffs Bluff, by Thomas Nelson Page
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Sheriffs Bluff
+       1908
+
+Author: Thomas Nelson Page
+
+Release Date: November 16, 2007 [EBook #23510]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SHERIFFS BLUFF ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SHERIFFS BLUFF
+
+By Thomas Nelson Page
+
+Charles Scribner's Sons New York, 1908
+
+Copyright, 1891, 1904, 1906
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+The county of H------ was an old Colonial county, and even as late as
+the time of my story contained many Colonial relics. Among them were the
+court-house and the jail, and, at that time, the Judge and the Sheriff.
+
+The court-house was an old brick edifice of solemn and grayish brown,
+with a portico whose mighty columns might have stood before a temple
+of Minerva overlooking the AEgean Sea. With its thick walls and massive
+barred windows, it might have been thought the jail, until one saw the
+jail. The jail once seen stood alone. A cube of stone, each block huge
+enough to have come from the Pyramid of Cheops; the windows, or rather
+the apertures, were small square openings, crossed and recrossed
+with great bars of wrought iron, so massive that they might have been
+fashioned on the forge of the Cyclops. Looking through them from the
+outside, one saw just deep enough into the narrow cavern to see another
+iron grating, and catch a suspicion of the darkness beyond. The entrance
+was but a slit letting into a stone-paved corridor on which opened the
+grinding iron doors of the four small cells, each door a grate of huge
+iron bars, heavily crossed, with openings just large enough to admit
+a hand. The jail was built, not to meet the sentimental or any other
+requirements of a reasonable and humane age, but in that hard time when
+crime was reckoned crime, when the very names of "gaol" and "prison"
+stood for something clear and unmistakable.
+
+The Judge of the circuit was himself a relic of the past, for his youth
+had been cast among those great ones of the earth whose memory had come
+down coupled with deeds so heroic and far-reaching, that even to the
+next generation the actors appeared half enveloped and magnified in the
+halo of tradition. His life had been one of high rectitude and dignity,
+to which habits of unusual studiousness and a great work on Executors
+had added a reputation for vast learning, and in his old age both in his
+manner and his habit he preserved a distance and a dignity of demeanor
+which lent dignity to the Bar, and surrounded him wherever he went
+with a feeling akin to awe. Though he had given up the queue and short
+clothes, he still retained ruffles, or what was so closely akin to them
+that the difference could scarcely be discerned. Tall, grave, and with a
+little bend, not in the shoulders but in the neck; with white hair just
+long enough to be brushed behind in a way to suggest the knot which
+had once appeared at the back; with calm, quiet eyes under bushy white
+eyebrows; a face of pinkish red inherited from Saxon ancestors, who once
+lived in the sun and on the brine, and a mouth and chin which bespoke
+decision and self-respect in every line and wrinkle, wherever he moved
+he produced an impression of one who had survived from a preceding age.
+Moreover, he was a man of heroic ideals, of Spartan simplicity, and of
+inflexible discipline.
+
+If he had a weakness it was his susceptibility to feminine testimony.
+
+The county was a secluded one--a fitting field for such a judge. And the
+great meetings of the year were the sessions of the Circuit Court.
+
+The Judge's name was then on every lip, and his passage to the
+court-house was a procession.
+
+Everyone except those unfortunates who had come under his ban, or might
+be too far gone in drink to venture into his presence, drew up along
+the path from the tavern to bow to him and receive his courteous bow in
+return as he passed with slow and thoughtful step along, preceded by the
+Sheriff and his deputies, and followed by the Bar and "the multitude."
+
+Whenever he entered the court or rose from the bench the lawyers stood.
+
+If he was impressive off the bench, on the bench he was imposing.
+
+At heart one of the kindest of men, he added to great natural dignity a
+high sense of the loft-iness of a position on the bench and preserved,
+with impartial and inflexible rigor, the strictest order in his court,
+ruling bar and attendants alike up to a high accountability.
+
+No one would any more have thought of taking a liberty with Judge Lomax
+than he would have done it with an old lion. Just one man, possibly,
+might have thought of it, but he would not have done it--and this was
+Aleck Thompson, the Sheriff of the county, a jovial man past middle age,
+a rubicund bachelor, who had courted half the girls in the county and
+was intimate with more than half the people in the circuit. He was
+daring even to rashness. He had held the office of Sheriff--not so long,
+perhaps, as the Judge had sat on the bench, but, at least, since he
+first stood for the place; and he could hold it as long as he wished it.
+He was easily the most popular man in the county. He treated everybody
+with unvarying joviality and indiscriminate generosity, and it was known
+that his income, though large, was, except so much as was absolutely
+necessary for his support, distributed with impartial fairness among the
+people of his county, a part over the poker-table, a part over the bar,
+and the balance in other popular ways. He had a face that no one could
+read, and bluffed as well with a pair of treys as with four aces. But
+he used to say that such a bluff was to be used rarely, and only on
+important occasions.
+
+Now and then some opposition to him would arise and a small headway
+would be made against him. As, for instance, after he advised Squire
+Jefford's plump and comely daughter, Mary, not to marry Dick Creel,
+because Dick was too dissipated. There were some who said that the
+Sheriff had designs himself on Sam Jefford's buxom, black-eyed daughter,
+while others held that he was afraid of young Dick, who was an amiable
+and popular young fellow, and that he did not want him to get too much
+influence in the lower end of the county. However it was, Mary Jefford
+not only married her young lover, but sobered him, and as she was young,
+pretty, and ambitious, and worshipped her husband, Dick Creel at the
+next election, to use the vernacular, "made cornsideruble show runnin'
+ag'inst the Sheriff, and give him cornsideruble trouble." Still,
+Thompson was elected overwhelmingly, and few people believed Mary
+Creel's charge that the Sheriff had got Dick drunk on purpose to beat
+him. Thompson said, "Did n't anybody have to _git_ Dick drunk--the work
+was t'other way."
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+The session of the Circuit Court in the "------ year of the
+Commonwealth," as the writs ran, and "in the sixteenth year of Aleck
+Thompson's Sheriffalty," as that official used to say, was more than
+usually important. The noted case of "_Dolittle et al. vs. Dolittle's
+Executrix_" was tried at the autumn term of the court, and caused
+considerable excitement in the county; for, in addition to the amount
+of property and the nice questions of law which were involved, the two
+sides had been severally espoused by two sister churches, and nearly
+half the county was in attendance, either as witnesses or interested
+spectators. Not only was every available corner in the little village
+filled to overflowing with parties, witnesses, and their adherents, but
+during the first week of the term the stable yards and road-sides were
+lined with covered wagons and other vehicles, in or under which some
+of those who had not been fortunate enough to obtain shelter in the
+inn used to sleep, and "Briles's bar" under the tavern did a thriving
+business.
+
+As the case, however, wore on, and the weather became inclement, the
+crowd dropped off somewhat, though a sufficient number still remained to
+give an air of life to the little roadside village.
+
+Certain of these visitors found the bar-room on the ground floor of
+the tavern across the road more attractive than the court-room, and as
+evening came the loud talking in that direction told that the visits had
+not been fruitless.
+
+Perfect order, however, prevailed in the court, until one evening one
+of these visitors, a young man named Turkle, who had been spending the
+afternoon at the bar, made his way into the court-room. He was clad in
+a dingy, weather-stained overcoat and an old slouch hat. He sank into
+a seat at the end of a bench near the door and, being very drunk, soon
+began to talk aloud to those about him.
+
+"Silence!" called the Sheriff over the heads of the crowd from his desk
+in front, and those near the man cautioned him to stop talking. A moment
+later, however, he began again. Again the Sheriff roared "Silence!" But
+by this time the hot air of the court-room had warmed up Mr. Turkle, and
+in answer to the warning of those about him, he declared in a maudlin
+tone, that he "Warn't goin' to keep silence."
+
+"I got 's much right to talk 's anyone, and I'ma goin' to talk 's much
+'s I please."
+
+His friends tried to silence him, and the Sheriff made his way through
+the crowd and endeavored to induce him to leave the court-room. But it
+was to no purpose. Jim Turkle was much too "far gone" to know what he
+was doing, though he was in a delightfully good humor. He merely hugged
+the Sheriff and laughed drunkenly.
+
+"Aleck, you jist go 'way f'om here. I ain't a-goin' to shet up. You shet
+up yourself. I 'm a-goin' to talk all I please. Now, you hear it."
+
+Then as if to atone for his rudeness, he caught the Sheriff roughly by
+the arm and pulled him toward him:
+
+"Aleck, how 's the case goin'? Is Mandy a goin' to win? Is that old
+rascal rulin' right!"
+
+The Sheriff urged something in a low voice, but Turkle would not be
+silenced.
+
+"Now you see thar," he broke out with a laugh to those about him, "did
+n't I tell you Aleck wa' n 't nothin' but a' ol' drunkard? What d'
+you s'pose the ol' rascal wants me to do? He wants me to go over there
+to the bar and git drunk like 'im, and I ain't goin' to do it. I never
+drink. I 've come here to see that my cousin Mandy's chil'ern gits
+their patrimony, and I ain' a goin' to 'sociate with these here drunken
+fellows like Aleck Thompson."
+
+The Sheriff made a final effort. He spoke positively, but Turkle would
+not heed.
+
+"Oh, 'Judge' be damned! You and I know that ol' fellow loves a dram jest
+'s well 's the best of 'em--jest 's well 's you do. Look at his face.
+You think he got that drinkin' well-water! Bet yer he 's got a bottle in
+'s pocket right now."
+
+A titter ran through the crowd, but was suddenly stopped.
+
+A quiet voice was heard from the other end of the court-room, and a
+deathly silence fell on the assemblage.
+
+"Suspend for a moment, gentlemen, if you please. Mr. Sheriff, bring that
+person to the bar of the Court."
+
+The crowd parted as if by magic, and the Sheriff led his drunken
+constituent to the bar, where his befuddled brain took in just enough of
+the situation to make him quiet enough. The Judge bent his sternest look
+on him until he quailed.
+
+"Have you no more sense of propriety than to disturb a court of justice
+in the exercise of its high function?"
+
+Turkle, however, was too drunk to understand this. He tried to steady
+himself against the bar.
+
+"I ain't is-turbed no Court of function, and anybody 't says so, Jedge,
+iz a liar." He dragged his hand across his mouth and tried to look
+around upon the crowd with an air of drunken triumph, but he staggered
+and would have fallen had not the Sheriff caught and supported him.
+
+The Judge's eyes had never left him.
+
+"Mr. Sheriff, take this intoxicated creature and confine him in the
+county gaol until the expiration of the term. The very existence of a
+court of justice depends upon the observance of order. Order must be
+preserved and the dignity of the Court maintained."
+
+There was a stir--half of horror--throughout the court-room. Put a man
+in that jail just for being tight!
+
+Then the Sheriff on one side and his deputy on the other, led the
+culprit out, now sufficiently quiet and half whimpering. A considerable
+portion of the crowd followed him.
+
+Outside, the prisoner was sober enough, and he begged hard to be let
+off and allowed to go home. His friends, too, joined in his petition and
+promised to guarantee that he would not come back again during the term
+of court. But the Sheriff was firm.
+
+"No. The Judge told me to put you in jail and I 'm goin' to do it." He
+took two huge iron keys from his deputy and rattled them fiercely.
+
+Turkle shrank back with horror.
+
+"You ain't goin' to put me in thar, Aleck! Not in that hole! Not just
+for a little drop o' whiskey. It was _your_ whiskey, too, Aleck. I was
+drinkin' yo' health, Aleck. You know I was."
+
+"The Judge won't know anything about it. He 'll never think of it
+again," pleaded several of Turkle's friends. "You know he has ordered a
+drunken man put there before and never said any more about it--just told
+you to discharge him next day."
+
+Turkle stiffened up with hope.
+
+"Yes, Aleck." He leaned on the Sheriff's arm heavily. "He 's drunk
+himself--I don't mean that, I mean _you 're_ drunk--oh, no--I mean _I'm_
+drunk. Everybody 's drunk."
+
+"Yes, you 've gone and called me a drunkard before the Court. Now I 'm
+goin' to show you." Thompson rattled his big keys again savagely.
+
+Turkle caught him with both hands.
+
+"Oh, Aleck, don't talk that a-way," he pleaded in a tremulous voice.
+"Don't talk that a-way!" He burst into tears and flung his arms around
+the Sheriff's neck. He protested that he had never, seen him take a
+drink in his life; he would go and tell the Judge so; if necessary, he
+would swear to it on a Bible.
+
+"Aleck, you know I love you better than anybody in this world--except my
+wife and children. Yes, better than them--better than Jinny. Jinny will
+tell you that herself. Oh! Aleck!" He clung to him and sobbed!
+
+His friends indorsed this and declared that they would bring him back if
+the Judge demanded his presence. They would "promise to bring him back
+dead or alive at any time he sent for him."
+
+As Turkle and his friends were always warm supporters of the Sheriff, a
+fact of which they did not fail to remind him, Thompson was not averse
+to letting him off, especially as he felt tolerably sure that the Judge
+would, as they said, forget all about the matter, or, if he remembered
+it, would, as he had done before, simply order him to discharge the
+prisoner. So, after dragging the culprit to the jail door to scare him
+well and make his clemency the more impressive, he turned him over to
+the others on condition that he would mount his mule and go straight
+home and not come back again during the term. This Turkle was so glad to
+do that he struck out at once for the stable at what Thompson called a
+"turkey trot," and five minutes later he was galloping down the road,
+swinging mightily on his sorrel mule, but whipping for life.
+
+That night Thompson was much toasted about the court-house for his
+humanity. Several of his admirers, indeed, got into somewhat the same
+condition that Turkle had been in.
+
+Even Dick Creel, who had come to court that day, lapsed from virtue and
+fell a victim to the general hilarity.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+The next morning when court was opened, the Judge was even more than
+usually dignified and formal. The customary routine of the morning
+was gone through with; the orders of the day before were read and
+were signed by the Judge with more than wonted solemnity. The Clerk, a
+benignant-looking old man with a red face and a white beard, took up his
+book and adjusted his glasses to call the pending docket: the case of
+"_Dolittle vs. Dolittle's Ex'ex._," and the array of counsel drew their
+chairs up to the bar and prepared for the work of the day, when the
+Judge, taking off his spectacles, turned to the Sheriff's desk.
+
+"Mr. Sheriff, bring in that unfortunate inebriate whom I sentenced to
+confinement in the gaol yesterday. The Court, while sensible of the
+imperative necessity of protecting itself from all unseemly disorder and
+preserving its dignity undiminished, nevertheless always leans to the
+side of mercy. The Court trusts that a night's incarceration may have
+sufficiently sobered and chastened the poor creature. The Court will
+therefore give him a brief admonition and will then discharge him."
+
+The Judge sat back in his large arm-chair and waited benignantly with
+his gaze resting placidly in front of him, while a deathly silence fell
+on the crowd and every eye in the courthouse was turned on the Sheriff.
+
+Thompson, standing at his desk, was staring at the Judge with jaw
+dropped and a dazed look like a man who had suddenly to face judgment.
+He opened his lips twice as if to speak, then turned and went slowly out
+of the court-house like a man in a dream, while those left behind looked
+in each other's eyes, some half scared and others more than half amused.
+
+Outside, Thompson stopped just between two of the great pillars.
+He rammed his hands deep in his pockets and gazed vacantly over the
+court-green and up the road.
+
+"What will he do with you! Remove you!" asked two or three friends who
+had slipped out of the door behind him and now stood about him.
+
+"He 'll put me in jail--_and_ remove me."
+
+*****
+
+"No matter if he says black 's white and white 's black, don't you open
+your mouth or you 'll get it. It 's much as I can do to keep you out of
+jail this minute."
+
+"But, Sheriff--! But, Aleck--! Just wait a minute! I don't----"
+
+The next instant he was inside the courthouse and the Sheriff was
+marching him up the aisle between the upturned faces. He planted him at
+the bar immediately before the Court, pulling off his hat in such a way
+as to drag his hair over his face and give him an even more dishevelled
+appearance than before. Then he moved around to his own desk, keeping
+his eye fixed piercingly on the astonished Creel's bewildered face. A
+gasp went over the court-room, and the Bar stared at the prisoner in
+blank amazement.
+
+The Judge alone appeared oblivious of his presence. He had sat
+absolutely silent and motionless since he had given the order to the
+Sheriff to produce the prisoner, his face expressive of deep reflection.
+Now he withdrew his eye from the ceiling.
+
+"Oh!"
+
+With impressive deliberation he put on his large gold-rimmed spectacles;
+sat up in his chair; assumed his most judicial expression, which sat
+curiously on his benignant face, and looked severely down upon the
+culprit. The court-room shivered and Thompson's round face grew
+perceptibly whiter; but his eyes, after a single glance darted at the
+Judge, never left the face of the man at the bar.
+
+The next second the Judge began to speak, and Thompson, and the
+court-room with him, heaved a deep sigh of relief.
+
+"Young man," said the Judge, "you have committed an act of grievous
+impropriety. You have been guilty of one of the most reprehensible
+offences that any citizen of a Commonwealth founded upon order and
+justice could commit, an act of such flagrant culpability that the
+Court, in the maintenance of its dignity and in the interest of the
+Commonwealth found it necessary to visit upon you punishment of great
+severity and incarcerate you in the gaol usually reserved for the most
+depraved malefactors. Intemperance is one of the most debasing of
+vices. It impairs the intellect and undermines the constitution. To
+the inhibition of Holy Writ is added the cumulative if inferential
+prohibition of the Law, which declines to consider inebriety, though
+extreme enough in degree to impair if not destroy the reasoning faculty,
+in mitigation of crime of the highest---- dignity. If you had no beloved
+family to whom your conduct would be an affliction, yet you have a duty
+to yourself and to the Commonwealth which you have flagrantly violated.
+To shocking inebriety you added the even grosser misdemeanor of
+disturbing a Court in the exercise of its supreme function: the calm,
+orderly, and deliberate administration of justice between the citizens
+of the Commonwealth."
+
+"But, Judge--?" began the young man.
+
+A sharp cough from the Sheriff interrupted him and he glanced at the
+Sheriff to meet a menacing shake of the head.
+
+The strangeness of the scene and the impressive solemnity of the Judge
+so wrought upon the young man that he began to whimper. He looked at the
+Judge and once more opened his mouth to speak, but the Sheriff, called,
+sharply:
+
+"Silence!"
+
+Creel glanced appealingly from the Judge to the Sheriff, only to meet
+another imperative shake of the latter's head and a warning scowl. Then
+the Judge proceeded, in a tone that showed that he was not insensible to
+his altered manner.
+
+"The Court, always mindful of that mercy whose quality 'is not strained,
+but droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath,'
+trusts that your recent incarceration, though brief, may prove adequate
+to the exigencies of the occasion. It hopes that the incarceration
+of one night in the common gaol may prove in case of a young man like
+yourself sufficiently efficacious to deter you from the repetition of
+so grave a misdemeanor, and at the same time not crush too much that
+generous spirit of youth which in its proper exercise may prove so
+advantageous to its possessor, and redound so much to the benefit of
+the Commonwealth. The order of the Court, therefore, is that the Sheriff
+discharge you from further imprisonment.
+
+"Mr. Sheriff, conduct the young man to the door, caution him against a
+recurrence of his offence, and direct him toward his home.
+
+"We will now proceed to call the docket."
+
+The court-room with another gasp broke into a buzz, which was instantly
+quelled by the sharp command of the Sheriff for silence and order in the
+court.
+
+"But, Judge--" began Creel again, "I don't understand--"
+
+What he did not understand was not heard, for Thompson seized the
+prisoner before he could finish his sentence, and, with a grip of steel
+on his arm, hustled him down the aisle and out of the court-room.
+
+A good many persons poured out of the court-room after them and with
+subdued laughter followed the Sheriff and his charge across the green.
+Thompson, however, did not wait for them. The young man appeared
+inclined to argue. But the Sheriff gave him no time. Hurrying him down
+the walk, he unhitched his horse for him and ordered him to mount.
+
+"But, Sheriff--Mr. Thompson, I 'm darned if I understand what it is all
+about."
+
+"You were drunk," said Thompson--"flagrantly inebriated. Go home. Did
+n't you hear the Judge?"
+
+"Yes, I heard him. He 's doty. I might have been drunk, but I 'm darned
+if I slept in jail last night--I slept in----"
+
+"I 'm darned if you did n't," said the Sheriff. "The Judge has ruled
+it so, and so you did. Now go home and don't you come back here again
+during this term, or you will sleep in jail again."
+
+"That old Judge is doty," declared the young man with a tone of
+conviction.
+
+"So much the worse for you if you come back here. Go home now, just as
+quick as you can."
+
+Creel reflected for a moment.
+
+"Well, it beats my time. I 'll tell you what I 'll do, Mr. Thompson," he
+said, half pleadingly. "I 'll go home and stay there if you will promise
+not to tell my wife I was in jail."
+
+"I promise you," said Aleck, solemnly. "I give you my word I won't."
+
+"And what 's more," continued Creel, "if you 'll keep anybody else from
+doing it, I 'll vote for you next time for Sheriff."
+
+"I promise you that, too," said Aleck, "and if anybody says you were
+there, let me know, and I 'll come up there and--and tell her you were
+n't. I can't do any more than that, can I?"
+
+"No, you can't do any more than that," admitted Creel, sadly, and,
+leaning over and shaking hands with the Sheriff cordially for the first
+time in some years, he rode away in profound dejection.
+
+"Well, I 've got to face Mary," he said, "and I reckon I might as well
+do it. Whiskey is a queer thing. I must have been a lot drunker than I
+thought I was, because if the Court had n't ruled it, I would have sworn
+I slept in that there wing room last night."
+
+"Well, that 's the best bluff I ever put up," said Thompson to the
+throng about him as he turned back to the court-house.
+
+The Sheriff's bluff became the topic of the rest of the term. Such
+audacity, such resourcefulness had never been known. Thompson became
+more popular than ever, and his re-election the following spring was
+admitted to be certain.
+
+"That Aleck Thompson 's the smartest man that is," declared one of his
+delighted adherents.
+
+Thompson himself thought so, too, and his imitation of the Judge, of
+Dick Creel, and of himself in court became his most popular story.
+
+Only the old Judge moved among the throng of tittering laymen calm,
+dignified, and unsuspecting.
+
+"If ever he gets hold of you, Aleck," said one of that worthy's
+worshippers, "there 's likely to be a vacancy in the office of sheriff."
+
+"He 'll put me in jail," laughed Aleck. "Dick Creel says he 's kind o'
+doty."
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+The Court was nearing the end of the term, _Dolittle et al. vs.
+Dolittle's Executrix_, with all its witnesses and all its bitternesses,
+had resulted in a mistrial, and the sister churches were wider apart
+than ever. The rest of the docket was being daily disposed of.
+
+The Sheriff was busy one day telling his story to an admiring throng on
+the court-green when someone casually observed that Mrs. Dick Creel had
+got off the train that morning.
+
+The Sheriff's face changed a little.
+
+"Where is she!"
+
+"Waitin' in the tavern parlor."
+
+"What is she doing here! What is she doing in there!"
+
+"Jest a settin' and a waitin'."
+
+"I 'spect she is waitin' for you, Aleck!" hazarded one of his friends.
+
+There was a burst of laughter, for Squire Jefford's daughter, Mary, was
+known to be "a woman of her own head."
+
+The Sheriff laughed, too; but his laughter was not as mirthful as usual.
+He made an ineffectual attempt to keep up his jollity.
+
+"I reckon I 'll go and see Mary," he said at length.
+
+He left the group with affected cheerfulness, but his heart was heavier
+than he liked to admit. He made his way to the "ladies' parlor," as
+the little sitting-room in the south wing of the rambling old tavern,
+overlooking the court-green was called, and opened the door.
+
+On one side of the wood fire, in a stiff, high-backed chair sat a young
+woman, in her hat and wrap and gloves, "jest a settin' and a waitin'."
+She was a well-made and comely young woman under thirty, with a ruddy
+face, smooth hair and bright eyes that the Sheriff knew could both smile
+and snap. Her head was well set on rather plump shoulders; her mouth was
+well formed, but was now close drawn, and her chin was strong enough to
+show firmness--too much firmness, as Thompson mentally decided when he
+caught its profile.
+
+The Sheriff advanced with an amiable smile. He was so surprised.
+
+"Why, you here, Mary! When did you come?" His tone was affable and even
+testified pleasure. But Mary did not unbend. She was as stiff as the
+chair she sat in. Without turning her head she turned her eyes and
+looked at him sideways.
+
+"_Mrs. Creel_."
+
+There was a glint in her black eyes that meant war, and Thompson's
+countenance fell.
+
+"Ah-ur-Mrs. Creel."
+
+"I did n't know as you 'd know me!" She spoke quietly, her eyes still on
+him sidewise.
+
+"Not know you! Why, of course, I know you. I don't forget the pretty
+girls--leastways, the prettiest girl in the county. Your father and
+I------"
+
+"I heard you made a mistake about my husband and Jim Turkle. I thought
+maybe you might think I was _Mrs_. Turkle."
+
+There was the least perceptible lifting of her shoulders and drawing
+down of her mouth, but quite enough to suggest Jenny Turkle 's high
+shoulders and grim face.
+
+The Sheriff tried to lighten the conversation.
+
+"Oh! Come now, Mary, you must n't get mad about that. It was all a joke.
+I was comin' right up after court adjourned to tell you about it--and--.
+It was the funniest thing! You 'd 'a' died laughing if you 'd been here
+and seen----"
+
+"I heard they was all laughin' about it. _I_ ain't so easy to amuse."
+
+"Oh! Yes, you would, too," began Thompson, cajolingly. "If you 'd
+seen----"
+
+"What time does Court adjourn!" she asked, quietly and irrelevantly,
+
+"Oh, not for two or three--not for _several_ days yet--Probably 't will
+hold over till well into next week. But if you 'd seen----"
+
+"I mean what time does it let out _to-day?_"
+
+Thompson's face fell again.
+
+"Why--ah--about--ah--Why! What do you want to know for!"
+
+"I want to see the Judge." Her voice was dead level.
+
+"What about!"
+
+"About business!"
+
+"What business!"
+
+"_Co'te_ business," with cold irony.
+
+"You don't mean that you 're goin' to----!"
+
+He paused without framing the rest of the question.
+
+She suddenly stood up and flamed out.
+
+"Yes, I am--that 's just what I am goin' to do. That 's what I 've come
+here for. You may take a liberty with the Judge--he 's doty; but you
+can't take a liberty with _me_--I 'm Squire Jefford's daughter, and I 'm
+goin' to show you."
+
+She was facing him now, and her black eyes were darting fire. Thompson
+was quite staggered.
+
+"Why, Mary! I am surprised at you. Your father's old friend--who has had
+you on his knee many a time. I am shocked and surprised--and mortified
+and--astonished--and mortified----"
+
+"You 've done said that one once," she said, icily.
+
+"Why, Mary, I thought we were friends--" he began. But she cut in on
+him.
+
+"Friends!" She spoke with contempt. "You 've had it in for Dick ever
+since he was a boy." Her voice suddenly broke and the tears sprang to
+her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.
+
+"Why, Mary--no such thing--I assure you--Dick and I are the best of
+friends--_dear_ friends."
+
+Her sniff was more forcible than words. She wiped her eyes and looked at
+him with freezing contempt.
+
+"I 'm a fool! And I don't want you to be _Mary_-in' me, either. If Dick
+chooses to let you get him drunk and make a beast and a fool of him and
+drag him up before the Court like a--a--like that drunkard, Jim Turkle,
+what don't know how to behave himself seemly in Court, and Circuit Court
+at that--he may; but I 'll let you know, _I'm_ not goin' to do it. I
+don't mean the Judge to think my husband's a thing like that. I mean to
+set him right. And I 'll tell him you are nothing but an old gambler who
+spends your time ruinin' young men, and braggin' as how you can bluff
+anybody."
+
+"Mary!--ur--Mrs. Creel!" gasped the Sheriff.
+
+She stalked by him wiping her eyes, and marched straight to the door;
+but the Sheriff was too quick for her. His office, his reputation,
+everything hung on his pacifying her. He sprang to the door and,
+standing with his back against it, began to apologize in so humble a
+tone that even the angry wife could not but listen to him.
+
+He said everything that any mortal could have said, and declared that he
+would do anything on earth that she might ask.
+
+She reflected, and he began to hope again. When their eyes met, hers
+were still hard, but they were calmer.
+
+"I know you think you are making a fool of me," she began, and then as
+he protested she shut him up with a sharp gesture.
+
+"Yes, you do, you think so; but you are not. There is but one thing I
+will accept in apology."
+
+"What is that!"
+
+"You are to make Dick your deputy."
+
+"But, M----"
+
+"I knew you would n't. Stand aside." She gave a sweep of the arm.
+
+"But, Mary!"
+
+"Stand aside, I say--I 'd rather have you removed anyway."
+
+"But, Mary, just listen----"
+
+"Stand aside, or I will call." She straightened herself and looked past
+him, as if listening.
+
+"But, Mary, do be reasonable!"
+
+She opened her mouth as if to cry out. The Sheriff threw up both hands.
+
+"Mary, please--For kingdom's sake, don't! What unreasonable creatures
+women are!"
+
+"You 'd better let women alone. One is as much as you can manage now."
+She spoke witheringly. "I give you one more chance."
+
+"More than I can manage. You know Dick will get drunk----"
+
+"Not unless you make him. Who was drunk at that barbecue at Jones's
+Cross Roads last summer!"
+
+"Oh, Mary!"
+
+"Who set up till after Sunday mornin' playin' kyards--. Yes, _gamblin'_
+the last night of last County Cote!"
+
+"Oh, Mary!--All right. I lay down my hand."
+
+She drew paper and pencil from her little bag and held them out to him.
+
+"Write it down."
+
+"Ain't my word good enough!"
+
+"If you mean to do it, why are you afraid to write it!"
+
+"I 'm not afraid."
+
+"Then write it." She held the paper to him with outstretched arm.
+
+"What shall I write!"
+
+"Write what I say: 'I Aleck Thompson, promise and bind myself if I
+remain in office for another term to appoint my _dear_ friend, Dick
+Creel'--underscore that--'my first deputy, and to keep him in as long as
+he keeps sober and attends to his business.' Now sign it."
+
+"What consideration do I get for this!" Thompson looked up from the
+paper at her ca-jolingly. She met his gaze with a little flash.
+
+"Oh! I forgot the consideration," she murmured, "and I Squire Jefford's
+daughter, too!
+
+"Write: 'The consideration for the above is the love I bear the
+aforesaid Richard Creel, and the fear I have that his wife will tell the
+Judge what a smart Aleck I am.'"
+
+"Mary, you don't want me to write that!"
+
+"Them very words. I little more forgot the consideration."
+
+The paper was written.
+
+She glanced out of the window.
+
+"Now I want a witness. I see the court is broken up."
+
+"Tain't necessary."
+
+"I want a witness, and I 'm goin' to _have_ him."
+
+"Who!"
+
+"The Judge."
+
+"Look here, Mary----"
+
+"I 'm goin' to have him. You come and introduce me."
+
+"Mary, are you after all goin' to----"
+
+She met his gaze frankly.
+
+"No--unless you go back on me. If you do, I 'll tell him and show him
+the paper; and what 's more, I 'll show it all around this county."
+
+A flash of genuine admiration sprang into the Sheriff's eyes.
+
+"Mary, you ought to have been a man, or--Mrs. Aleck Thompson."
+
+The paper was signed and witnessed.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Sheriffs Bluff, by Thomas Nelson Page
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