vern, for Erskine was to plead for the Woodhulls, and every body likes to hear his silver tongue."
"Erskine plead for the Woodhulls!" exclaimed Jane.
"Oh yes, Miss Jane; for, as I told you, they are very thick. My attorney was a kind of a 'prentice-workman at the law; he was afraid of Erskine too; and he stammered, and said one thing and meant another, and made such a jingle of it, I could not wonder the justice and the people did not think I had a good claim for damages. But still, the plain story was so much against the Woodhulls, and the people of the village are so friendly-like to me, that it is rather my belief, I should have been righted if Erskine had not poured out such a power of words, that he seemed to take away people's senses. He started with what he called a proverb of the law, and repeated it so many times, I think I can never forget it, for it seemed to be the hook he hung all his argufying upon. It was 'cujus est solum, ejus est usque ad cœlum', (we have taken the liberty slightly to correct the old man's quotation of the Latin); which, if I rightly understood, it means, that whoever owns the soil, owns all above it to the sky; and though it stands to reason it can't be so, yet Erskine's fine oration put reason quite out of the question; and so the justice decided that the Woodhulls had a right to do what seemed good in their own eyes with my furniture; and then he gave me a bit of an exhortation, and told me I should never make out well in the world, if I did not know more of
