BROWN

(Can’t quite place the name, but it has unpleasant connotations)

Hornbeck…Hornbeck…

HORNBECK

I am a newspaperman, bearing news.

When this sovereign state determined to indict

The sovereign mind of a less-than-sovereign schoolteacher,

My editors decided there was more than a headline here.

The Baltimore Herald, therefore, is happy to announce

That it is sending two representatives to “Heavenly Hillsboro”:

The most brilliant reporter in America today,

Myself.

And the most agile legal mind of the Twentieth Century,

Henry Drummond.

(This name is like a whip-crack.)

MRS. BRADY

(Stunned)

Drummond!

BROWN

Henry Drummond, the agnostic?

BANNISTER

I heard about him. He got those two Chicago child murderers off just the other day.

BROWN

A vicious, godless man!

(Blithely, HORNBECK reaches across the picnic table and chooses a drumstick. He waves it jauntily toward the astonished party.)

HORNBECK

A Merry Christmas and a Jolly Fourth of July!

(Munching the drumstick, HORNBECK goes off. Unnoticed, BRADY and RACHEL have left the scene, missing this significant disclosure. There is a stunned pause.)

DAVENPORT

(Genuinely impressed)

Henry Drummond for the defense. Well!

BROWN

Henry Drummond is an agent of darkness. (With resolution) We won’t let him in the town!

DAVENPORT

I don’t know by what law you could keep him out.

MAYOR

(Rubbing his chin)

I’ll look it up in the town ordinances.

BROWN

I saw Drummond once. In a courtroom in Ohio. A man was on trial for a most brutal crime. Although he knew—and admitted—the man was guilty, Drummond was perverting the evidence to cast the guilt away from the accused and onto you and me and all of society.

MRS. BRADY

Henry Drummond. Oh, dear me.

BROWN

I can still see him. A slouching hulk of a man, whose head juts out like an animal’s. (He imitates DRUMMOND’S slouch. MELINDA watches, frightened) You look into his face, and you wonder why God made such a man. And then you know that God didn’t make him, that he is a creature of the Devil, perhaps even the Devil himself!

(Little MELINDA utters a frightened cry, and buries her head in the folds of her mother’s skirt. BRADY re-enters with RACHEL, who has a confused and guilty look. BRADY’S plate has been scraped clean; only the fossil of the turkey leg remains. He looks at the ring of faces, which have been disturbed by BROWN’S description of the heretic DRUMMOND. MRS. BRADY comes toward him.)

MRS. BRADY

Matt—they’re bringing Henry Drummond for the defense.

BRADY

(Pale)

Drummond? (The townspeople are impressed by the impact of this name on BRADY) Henry Drummond!

BROWN

We won’t allow him in the town!

MAYOR

(Lamely)

I think—maybe the Board of Health—

(He trails off.)

BRADY

(Crossing thoughtfully)

No. (He turns) I believe we should welcome Henry Drummond.

MAYOR

(Astonished)

Welcome him!

BRADY

If the enemy sends its Goliath into battle, it magnifies our cause. Henry Drummond has stalked the courtrooms of this land for forty years. When he fights, headlines follow. (With growing fervor) The whole world will be watching our victory over Drummond. (Dramatically) If St. George had slain a dragonfly, who would remember him.