"Are you all through, gentlemen? Six months' labour for thirty-seven
fifty is mighty cheap, and you know the law allows you to keep the
labourer up to the mark. Are you all done? Sold to Mr. Turner, for Mr.
Fetters, for six months."
The prisoner's dull face showed some signs of apprehension when the
name of his purchaser was pronounced, and he shambled away uneasily
under the constable's vigilant eye.
"The case of the State against Bud Johnson is next in order. Bring in
the prisoner."
The constable brought in the prisoner, handcuffed, and placed him in
front of the Justice's desk, where he remained standing. He was a
short, powerfully built negro, seemingly of pure blood, with a
well-rounded head, not unduly low in the brow and quite broad between
the ears. Under different circumstances his countenance might have
been pleasing; at present it was set in an expression of angry
defiance. He had walked with a slight limp, there were several
contusions upon his face; and upon entering the room he had thrown a
defiant glance around him, which had not quailed even before the stern
eye of the tall man, Turner, who, as the agent of the absent Fetters,
had bid on Sam Brown. His face then hardened into the blank expression
of one who stands in a hostile presence.
"Bud Johnson," said the justice, "you are charged with escaping from
the service into which you were sold to pay the fine and costs on a
charge of vagrancy. What do you plead--guilty or not guilty?"
The prisoner maintained a sullen silence.
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