me sense from an
old manuscript.]

[Footnote 27: _Juberous_ is in none of the vocabularies that I have
seen. I once treated this word in print as an undoubted corruption of
_dubious_, and when used subjectively it apparently feels the influence
of dubious, as where one says: "I feel mighty juberous about it." But it
is much oftener applied as in the text to the object of fear, as "The
bridge looks kind o' juberous." Halliwell gives the verb _juberd_ and
defines it as "to jeopard or endanger." It is clearly a dialect form of
_jeopard_, and I make no doubt that _juberous_ is a dialect variation of
_jeopardous_, occasionally used as a form of _dubious_.]

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE TRIAL.

The "prosecuting attorney" (for so the State's attorney is called in
Indiana) had been sent for the night before. Ralph refused all legal
help. It was not wise to reject counsel, but all his blood was up, and
he declared that he would not be cleared by legal quibbles. If his
innocence were not made evident to everybody, he would rather not be
acquitted on a preliminary examination. He would go over to the circuit
court and have the matter sifted to the bottom. But he would have been
pleased had his uncle offered his counsel, though he would have declined
it. He would have felt better to have had a letter from home somewhat
different from the one he received from his Aunt Matilda by the hand of
the prosecuting attorney. It was not very encouraging or very
sympathetic, though it was very characteristic.

"Dear Ralph:

"This is what I have always been afraid of. I warned you faithfully the
last time I saw you. My skirts are clear of your blood, I can not
consent for your uncle to appear as your counsel or to go your bail. You
know how much it would injure him in the county, and he has no right to
suffer for your evil acts. O my dear nephew! for the sake of your poor,
dead mother--"

We never shall know what the rest of that letter was. Whenever Aunt
Matilda got to Ralph's poor, dead mother in her conversation Ralph ran
out of the house. And now that his poor, dead mother was again made to
do service in his aunt's pious rhetoric, he landed the letter on the hot
coals before him, and watched it vanish into smoke with a grim
satisfaction.

Ralph was a little afraid of a mob. But Clifty was better than Flat
Creek, and Squire Hawkins, with all his faults, loved justice, and had a
profound respect for the majesty of the law, and a pr