And ever as in this slow progress Tom came nearer to the center he felt the breath of the mob to be hotter. When he got within the door there was a confused rustle among the people on the threshing-floor, a murmur from those who jostled one another in the hay-mows, and a sound of indignation from the people seated on cross-beams and clinging to girders; mutterings even came down from those lodged like overhanging angels in the dizzy collar-beams, fast by the barn-swallows" nests. Such excited crowds are choruses who wait for some one to give them the key; the pitch of the first resolute voice determines the drift of feeling.
If somebody had called out at this moment for fair play, the solvent feeling of the crowd might have crystallized about this one. But indignation got tongue first.
"Hang him!" The words came from the corner of the threshing-floor farthest from the coroner, and in an instant the tide of feeling ran swiftly to that side. Tom recognized the harsh voice, and realized his danger in perceiving that the resentful Jake Hogan was leading those who sought to lynch him.
When the sheriff, with Grayson, had penetrated to the neighborhood of the coroner, the inquest was continued by calling David Sovine. This young man, with stylish trousers strapped down to patent-leather shoes, came forward chewing tobacco and affecting a self-confident swagger. He took the oath nonchalantly.
"Tell us what you know of the murder of George Lockwood," said the coroner.
"Well, me an" George had been together, an" we parted. He was goin"
to-_wards_ his horse an" me to-_wards_ the camp-meetin". I was about twenty foot, or maybe twenty-five foot, away from "im when along come Tom Grayson an" says, says he, "I"m boun" to git even with you wunst fer all." I looked aroun", an" Tom was aimin" his pistol. George Lockwood says, says he, "Don"t shoot me, Tom"; but Tom he up an" fired, an"
George jist keeled over like, an" never said another word. Tom run off as fast as his legs could carry him. I run up to George, an" he was layin" there dead "s a door-nail. Then the crowd come a-runnin", an"
that"s about all I know about it."
"D" you remember the pistol?"
"Yes."
"Was it like this?"
"Yes; an ole-fashioned big bore single-barrel like that, I should say."
"That"ll do. You can stand aside," said the coroner.
"Hang him!" cried Jake Hogan; and there were other cries that showed how swiftly and terribly the current was setting in the direction indicated by Jake.
Tom Grayson was sworn.
"Now," said the coroner, "you don"t have to criminate yourself. If you cannot answer any question asked of you without criminating you, you can decline to give an answer."
For how many ages have Anglo-Saxons made their criminal law ridiculous by this rule!
"Now," the coroner went on, "tell us just what you know about the shooting at the camp-meeting."
"I don"t know anything at all about it," said Tom with agitation. "I haven"t seen George Lockwood since I quarreled with him in Moscow till I saw him here." And he pointed with a trembling finger to the stark form of the man he had hated.
"Lie!" cried Hogan. The coroner called, "Order!"
"Aw!" said one of the women in the wheat-mow. "To think he could have the impedence to hole up his head an" talk that away un the corpse right there afore his eyes!"
"Do you know that pistol?" asked the coroner.
Tom took it up and looked at some marks on the b.u.t.t of it.
"It"s mine," he said.
"Did you have it at the camp-meeting?"
"No, nor any other."
"You are not obliged to criminate yourself," said the coroner again; "but didn"t you see Lockwood killed?"
"No," said Tom. "It"s all a lie that Dave Sovine swore to, and he knows it. I wasn"t on that part of the ground."
"Hang him!" interjected Hogan.
"The bah-y is awful plucky, upon me sowl," said Magill, who was standing on a plow-beam in order to see over the heads of the crowd. "It would be a pity to hang a man of such good stuff."
"The bare-faced villain!" growled the man next to him, and the unfavorable impression evidently had sway with the crowd. When people have once made up their mind as to how a thing has happened, they do not like to have their fixed notions disturbed. Tom"s heart sank; he could see that the chance for his getting back to the jail alive was growing smaller. Hiram Mason had attached himself to Tom and the sheriff, and had elbowed his way to the front in their wake; the people, supposing that he had some official function, made way for him. He now got the ear of the sheriff.
"If you don"t get Tom away at once he"ll be lynched," he said.
"I know it; but I don"t know what to do," said Plunkett. "If I make any move, I"ll fetch the crowd down on Tom."
"Get him down into the cow-stable under the barn, and let Markham take him off. You stay here and they won"t suspect that he"s gone."
There was something pitiable about the sheriff"s inability to make a decision at a critical moment. He looked at the angry crowd, who were paying little attention to the testimony of unimportant witnesses, and he looked at the coroner. He didn"t like to bear the responsibility of having a prisoner taken from his hands; still more he disliked to offend so many voters.
"Settle it with Markham and the coroner," he said, sneaking out of the decision he could not bring himself to make.
"Mr. Markham," whispered Hiram, "the sheriff wants you and me to get Tom off. I"ll get the horses ready, and you and Tom are to come out through the cow-stable. Speak to the coroner about it, and don"t let the crowd see it. If we don"t get him away before this thing breaks up he"ll never get to town alive."
"All right," said Markham. "I"ll be in the cow-stable with Tom when you"re ready."
Jake Hogan had already gone out to muster his men, and Hiram was very impatient at the long time it took him to work his way outward. He was a little annoyed when Magill, getting down from the plow-beam, stopped him to whisper:
"I say, you"re Tom"s friend. Now what can I do for the bah-y? I s"pose he"s guilty, but I don"t want to see such a bowld gintleman as he is lynched by such a set of howlin" blackguards as these."
"Go over there and stand in front of Tom, so that the people won"t see him and Markham when they get down into the cow-stable."
Having whispered this between his teeth, Mason painfully worked his way out of the door, while Magill pushed forward toward the coroner. For Magill the people made way as best they could, supposing that the clerk was one of the functionaries without whom the performance could not proceed. The coroner had acceded to Markham"s proposition and was contriving to protract the session. Magill called Sheriff Plunkett to him and made that worthy stand in unimportant conversation with him, so that they two covered from all observers first Markham"s descent and then Tom"s. The deputy sheriff and then his prisoner had to climb over a hay-rack and thence down to the ground. The cow-stable was beneath that end of the barn which jutted over a hill-side descending to a brook. As nothing was to be seen from this stable, there was n.o.body in it but a few boys.
When Mason came to say that he was ready, Markham pa.s.sed out with his prisoner and down the hill-side to the bed of the brook, where Mason had brought the deputy"s horse and old Blaze. Tom had been brought to the inquest in a wagon; but as it was necessary to avoid the main road, Mason had unharnessed Blaze for Tom to ride. As the hoofs of the horses clattered down over the stones in the bed of the stream, Tom felt as a man might who had but just eluded the coils of a boa-constrictor. In a little while the two were galloping over the open prairie toward Moscow by by-roads.
The prisoner"s absence was observed; but, as the sheriff remained, it was not at first suspected that he had got entirely away. People looked for him and inquired of one another where "they had put him." At length the testimony was all in, and the case was given to the jury. These "good men and true," as the old English law supposes them to be, retired for consultation; that is, they changed places with the coroner and stood with their faces toward the wall in the corner and their backs toward the crowd, which now buzzed like a nest of indignant b.u.mble-bees. After a few minutes, the jury turned and their foreman read the verdict:
"We find that George Lockwood came to his death by being shot with buckshot, fired from a pistol by Thomas Grayson, Junior, and we recommend that the said Thomas Grayson be committed to answer to the charge of murder."
When this formal condemnation had been read, the pa.s.sions of the crowd broke over all bounds, and the words of the coroner, formally ordering the commitment of the prisoner, were not heard. Cries of "Hang him! Hang him to the first tree!" mingled with curses, broke forth. Men swung themselves down from the high beams and there was a rush from the mows, while the women among the wheat-sheaves drew back in terror as they might have done in a rising hurricane. The crowd surged hither and thither about the outside of the barn, and surrounded the sheriff and the coroner, demanding the prisoner. It was more than five minutes after the verdict was in before it was believed that Tom had been taken away, and then the mob were bewildered by the certainty that n.o.body had seen him taken down the Moscow road. Foiled in their purpose, they fell away, and the tide of pa.s.sion began to ebb. But the more determined rallied about Hogan, and agreed to meet him at the Broad Run grocery after dark, to make arrangements for a trip to the county-seat during the night.
XVII
A COUNCIL OF WAR
As soon as Zeke had eaten the frugal supper of mush and milk that Mrs.