Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1908-01-16
d4s CONQUEST
OF CANAAN
BY BOOTH HARRINGTON.
Author 81 Cherry" Monsieur Beau
caire." Etc.
Copyright. 1906. by Harper 8 Brothers


Tightening the burdens of the guilty.
He became the most dangerous at
torney for the defense in Canaan. His
honorable brethren, accepting the pop
ular view Of him, held him In personal
contempt, but feared him profession
ally, for he proved that he knew more
law than they thought existed. Nor
could any trick him, failing which
many tempers were lost, but never
Joe's. His practice was not all crimi-
nal, as shown by the peevish outburst
of the eminent Buckalew (the squire's
nephew, esteemed the foremost lawyer
in Canaan, Before long there won't
be any use trying to foreclose a mort
gage or collect note unless this shy
ster gets himself in jaily'
The wrath of Judge Martin Pike was
august-there was a kind of sublimity
in its immenseness-on a day when it
befell that the shyster stood betwixt
him and money.
That was monstrous task--to stand
between these two and separate them,
to hold back the hand of Martin Pike
from what it had reached out to grasp.
1t was In the matter of some tax titles
which the magnate had acquired, and
in court Joe treated the case with such
horrifying simplicity that it seemed al
most credible that the great man had
counted upon the ignorance and be-
sottedness of Joes client, hard drink
ing, disreputable old farmer, to get his
land away from him without paying
for it. Now, as every one knew such
was at once noised abroad in Canaan
that Joe had helped to swindle Judge
Pike out of a large sum of money-it
was notorious that the shyster could
bamboozle court and jury with his
tricks, and it was felt that Joe Lou
den was getting into very deep wa
tiers indeed. This was serious. II
the young man did not look out he
might find himself in the penitentiary.
Joe did not move into a larger Of
fee; he remained in the little room
with it's one window and its fine
view OF the jail His clients were
nearly all poor, and many of his fees
quite literally nominal. Tatters and
rags came up the narrow stairway to
his door-tatters and rags and pitiful
fneries; the bleared, the sodden, the
Haunting and rouged, the furtiye and
wary, some in rags, some in tags and
some-the sorriest-in velvet gowns.
With these, the distressed the wrong
doors, the drunken, the dirty and the
n low IA n
and nights were spent.
When Joe went about the streets he
was made to feel his condition by the
elaborate avoidance, yet furtive at
tention, of every respectable person he
met, and when he came home to his
small rooms and shut the door behind
him he was as one who has been
Kissed and shamed in public and runs
to bury his hot face in his pillow. He
petted his mongrel extravagantly well
he might and would sit with him in
his rooms at night holding long con-
verse with him, the two alone togeth-
er. The dog was not his only con-
fdant. There came to be another, a
more and more frequent partner to
their conversations, at last familiar
spirit. This third came from brown
jug which Joe kept on a shelf in his
bedroom, vessel too frequently re-
plenished. When the days work was
done he shut himself up, drank alone
and drank hard. Sometimes when the
jug ran low and the night was late he
would go out for a walk with his dog
and would awake in his room the next
morning not remembering where he
had gone or how he had come home.
Once, after such lapse of memory,
he woke amazed to find himself at
Beaver Beach, whittier, he learned
from the red bearded man, Happy Fear
had brought him, having found him
wandering daZedly In field near by.
These lapses grew more frequent until
there occurred that which was one of
the strange things of his life.
1t was a June night, little more
than two years after his return to
Canaan, and the Tocsin had that day
announced the approaching marriage
Of Eugene Bantry and his employers
daughter Joe ate nothing during the
day and went through his work clumsi-
ly, visiting the bedroom shelf at inter-
walls. At 10 in the evening he went out
to have the jug refilled, but from the
moment he left his door and the fresh
air struck his face he had no clear
knowledge of what he did or of what
went on about him until he woke in
his bed the next morning
And yet, whatever little part of the
soul of him remained that night still
undulled, not numbed, but alive, was
in some strange manner lifted out Of
It's pain toward a strange delight. His
body was an automaton, his mind in
bondage, yet there was still small
consciousness in him which knew that
IN his wandering something incredible
and unexpected was happening. What
this was he did not know, could not
see, though his eyes were open, could