eated.

The trial of this cause kept the Woolstons at the crater a week longer
than they would have remained. When the cause was submitted to the jury,
Mr. Attorney-General had a great deal to say about aristocracy and
privileged orders, as well as about the sacred rights of the people. To
hear him, one might have imagined that the Woolstons were princes in the
full possession of their hereditary states, and who were dangerous to
the liberties or the mass, instead of being what they really were,
citizens without one right more than the meanest man in the colony, and
with even fewer chances of maintaining their share of these common
rights, in consequence of the prejudice, and jealousy, and most of all,
the _envy_, of the majority. Woolston argued his own cause, making a
clear, forcible and manly appeal to the justice and good sense of the
jury, in vindication of his claims; which, on every legal as well as
equitable principle, was out of all question such as every civilized
community should have maintained. But the great and most powerful foe of
justice, in cases of this sort, is SLANG; and SLANG in this instance
came very near being too much for law. The jury were divided, ten going
for the 'people,' and two for the right; one of the last being Bigelow,
who was a fearless, independent fellow, and cared no more for the
bug-bear called the 'people,' by the slang-whangers of politics, than he
did for the Emperor of Japan.

The day after this fruitless trial, which left Mark's claim in abeyance
until the next court, a period of six months, the intended travellers
repaired on board ship, and the brig, with her party, went to sea, under
her owner, captain Betts, who had provided himself with a good navigator
in the person of his mate. The Rancocus, however, crossed over to the
Peak, and the passengers all ascended to the plain, to take leave of
that earthly paradise. Nature had done so much for this place, that it
had been the settled policy of Mark Woolston to suffer its native charms
to be marred as little as possible. But the Peak had ever been deemed a
sort of West-End of the Colony; and, though the distribution of it had
been made very fairly, those who parted with their shares receiving very
ample compensations for them, a certain distinction became attached to
the residence on the Peak. Some fancied it was on account of its
climate; some, because it was a mountain, and was more raised up in the
world than the low isl