“I come to you, sir, with the good wishes of your family,” said the stranger.
“I confess I didn't catch your name,”. said Alvin, unfolding himself from his cot. “It's pretty late in the evening.”
“Verily Cooper,” said the stranger. “Forgive my late arrival. I thought it better that we speak tonight, since the first matter of your defense before the court is in the morning.”
“I know the judge is finally going to start choosing him a jury.”
“Yes, that's important, of course. But under the, advice of an outside lawyer, a Mr. Daniel Webster, the county attorney has introduced some unpleasant motions. As, for instance, a motion requiring that the contested property be placed under the control of the court.”
“The judge won't go for that,” said Alvin. “He knows that the second this plow is out of my hands, some rough boys from the river, not to mention a few greedier souls from town, will move heaven and earth to get their hands on it. The thing's made of gold– that's all they know and care about it. But who are you, Mr. Cooper, and what does all this have to do with you?”
“I'm your attorney, Mr. Smith, if you'll have me.” He handed Alvin a letter.
Alvin recognized Armor-of-God's handwriting at once, and the signatures of his parents and his brothers and sisters. They all signed, affirming that they found Mr. Cooper to be a man of good character and assuring him that someone was paying a high-powered lawyer from New England named Daniel Webster to sneak around and collect lies from anyone as had a grievance against him in Vigor Church. “But I've done no harm to anyone there,” said Alvin, “and why would they lie?”
“Mr. Smith, I have to–”
“Call me Alvin, would you? 'Mr. Smith' always sounds to me like my old master Makepeace, the fellow whose lies got me into this fix.”
"Alvin, said Cooper again. "And you must call me Verily."
“Whatever.”
“Alvin, it has been my experience that the better a man you are, the more folks there are who resent you for it, and find occasion to get angry at you no matter how kindly meant your deeds may be.”
“Well then, I'm safe enough, not being such a remarkable good man.”
Cooper smiled. “I know your brother Calvin,” he said.
Alvin raised an eyebrow. “I'd like to say that any friend of Calvin's is a friend of mine, but I can't.”
“Calvin's hatred of you is, I believe, one of the best recommendations of your character that I could think of. It's because of his account of you that I came to meet you. I met him in London, you see, and determined then and there to close my legal practice and come to America and see the man who can teach me who and what I am, and what it's for.”
With that, Cooper bent down and took up Alvin's Testament, the book that lay open on the floor beside his cot. He closed it, then handed it back to Alvin.
Alvin tried to thumb it open, but the pages were fused shut as tight as if the book were one solid block of wood with a leather cover.
Verily took it back from him for only a moment, then returned it yet again. This time the book fell open to the exact page that Alvin had been reading. “I could have died for that in England,” said Verily. “It was the wisdom of my parents and my own ability to learn to hide these powers that kept me alive all these years. But I have to know what it is. I have to know why God lets some folks have such powers. And what to do with them. And who you are.”
Alvin ray back on his cot. “Don't this beat all,” he said. “You crossed an ocean to meet me?”
“I had no idea at the time that I might be of service to you. In fact, I must say that it occurs to me that perhaps some providential hand led me to the study of law instead of following my father's trade as a cooper. Perhaps it was known that one day you would face. the silver tongue of Daniel Webster.”
“You got you a tongue of gold, then, Verily?” asked Alvin.
“I hold things together,” said Verily. “It's my… knack, as you Americans call it. That is what the law does. I use the law to hold things together. I see how things fit.”
“This Webster fellow– he's going to use the law to try to tear things apart.”
“Like you and the plow.”
“And me and my neighbors,” said Alvin.
“Then you understand the dilemma,” said Verily. “Up till now you've been known as a man of generosity and kindness to all. But you have a plow made of gold that you won't let anyone see. You have fantastic wealth which you share with no one. This is a wedge that Webster will attempt to use to split you from your community like a rail from a log.”
“When gold comes into it,” said Alvin, “folks start to finding out just how much love and loyalty is worth to them, in cash money.”
“And it's rather shameful, don't you think, how cheap the price can be sometimes.” Verily smiled ruefully.
“What's your price?”
“When you get free of this place, you let me go with you, to learn from you, to watch you, to be part of all you do.”
“You don't even know me, and you're proposing marriage.”
Verily laughed. “I suppose it sounds like that, doesn't it.”
“Without none of the benefits, neither,” said Alvin. “I'm right comfortable taking Arthur Stuart along with me, because he knows when to keep silent, but I don't know if I can take having a fellow who wants to pick my brains tagging along with me every waking minute.”
“I'm a lawyer, so my trade is talk, but I promise you that if I didn't know when and how to keep silence, I'd never have lived to adulthood in England.”
“I can't give you no promises,” said Alvin. “So I reckon you ain't my attorney after all, since I can't make your fee.”
“There's one promise you can make me,” said Verily. “To give me an honest chance.”
Alvin studied the man's face and decided he liked the look of him, though he wished as more than once before that he had Peggy's knack of seeing inside a fellow's mind instead of just being able to check out the health of his organs.
“Yes, I reckon I can make that promise, Verily Cooper,” said Alvin. “An honest chance you'll have, and if that's fee enough for you, then you're my attorney.”
“Then the deed is done. And now I'll let you go back to sleep, excepting only for one question.”
“Ask it.”
“This plow– how vital is it to you that the plow remain in your hands, and no one else's?”
“If the court demands that I give it up, I'll buck this jail and live in hiding the rest of my days before I'll let any other hand touch the plow.”
“Let's be precise. Is it the possession of it that matters, or the very seeing and touching of it?”
“I don't get your question.”
“What if someone else could see and touch it in your presence?”
“What good would that do?”
“Webster will argue that the court has the right and duty to determine that the plow exists and that it's truly made of gold, in order to make just compensation possible, if the court should determine that you need to pay Mr. Makepeace Smith the cash value of the plow.”
Alvin hooted. “It never crossed my mind, in all this time in jail, that maybe I could buy old Makepeace off.”
“I don't think you can,” said Verily. “I think it's the plow he wants, and the victory, not the money.”
“True enough, though I reckon if the money's all he can get…”
“So tell me, as long as the plow is in your possession…”
“I guess it depends on who's doing the looking and the touching.”
“If you're there, nobody can steal it, am I right?” asked Verily.
“Reckon that's true,” said Alvin.
“So how free a hand do I have?”
“Makepeace can't be the one to touch it,” said Alvin. “Not out of any meanness on my part, but here's the thing: The plow's alive.”
Verily raised an eyebrow.
“It don't breathe and it don't eat or nothing like that,” said Alvin. “But the plow is alive under a man's hand. Depending on the man. But for Makepeace to touch the plow while he's living in the midst of a black lie– I don't know what would happen to him. I don't know if it'd be safe for him ever to touch metal again. I don't know what the hammer and anvil would do to him, if his hands touched the plow with his heart so black.”