"Aw, well, Bob," called b.u.t.ts, after a conference with his wife, "I don"t like to disobleege a neighbor. You kin have the bay colt; but you must drive slow, Bob. He"s a young thing un the fidgetiest critter."
Bob would drive slow. He professed that he never drove faster "n a slow trot, "nohows you can fix it." And he helped b.u.t.ts to hitch up with no sense of exultation, but rather with a sneaking feeling of shame.
However, nothing troubled Bob long or deeply, and when he had pa.s.sed the branch and taken in Zeke Tucker, and got out of the woods to the smooth prairie road beyond, he forgot his scruples and tried to find out just how much speed b.u.t.ts"s bay colt might have in him. Nor did he slacken pace even when he got into the village streets; but remembering how near it was to Jake"s time, he held the horse swiftly on till he reached an alley-way behind some village stores. Telling Tucker to tie the horse, he got over the fence and laid hold of a rusty crowbar that he had long kept his mind fixed on. Putting this on his shoulder, he was soon at the jail.
"Tom!" he called, in a smothered voice, at the grated window on the east side. But all within was as silent as it was dark. For a moment Bob stood perplexed. Then he went to the grating at the back of the jail--the window that opened into the pa.s.sage-way at the end opposite to the front door.
"Tom, where air you?" he called, putting his hands up on each side of his mouth, that his words might not be heard in the street.
"In the dungeon." Tom"s voice sounded remote.
Bob spent no time in deliberating, but thrust the crowbar between the cross-bars of the iron grating. His first difficulty was similar to that of Archimedes, he could not get a fulcrum; or, as he expressed it less elegantly to Zeke, "he couldn"t git no purchase onto the daudblasted ole thing." But by persistently ramming the point of the crowbar against the stone-work at the side of the window he succeeded at length in picking out a little mortar and bracing the tip of the crowbar against a projecting stone. He had great confidence in his own physical strength, but the grating at first was too much for him; the wrought-iron cross-bar of the window bent under the strain he put upon it, but it would not loosen its hold on the masonry. At this rate it would take more time than he could hope to have to push the bars apart enough to admit even Zeke"s thin frame, and he could not hope to bend them far enough to let his own great body through. He therefore changed his mode of attack. Withdrawing his crowbar from the grating, he felt for a seam in the stones at the base of the window and then drove the point of the bar into this over and over again, aiming as well as he could in the dark and taking the risk of attracting the attention of some wakeful villager by the sound of his ringing blows. At length, by drilling and prying, he had loosened the large stone which was in some sort the key to the difficulty. This accomplished, he made haste to insert the bar again into the grating, bracing its point as before in the seam he had already opened in the stone-work at the side of the window. Then, with his feet against the wall of the jail, he crouched his great frame and put forth the whole of his forces, thrusting his mighty strength against the crowbar, as blind Samson in his agony tugged at the pillars of the Philistine temple. In some colossal work of Michael Angelo"s I have seen a tremendous figure so contorted, writhing in supreme effort. The mortar broke, some of the stones gave way at length, and one bar of the grating was wrenched reluctant from its anchorage in the wall below. Then, letting the crowbar fall, Bob seized the rod now loosened at one end and tore it quite out, and then threw it from him in a kind of fury. The process had to be repeated with each separate bar in the grating, though the breaking up of the wall about the window made each rod come more easily than the preceding one. When all had been removed he squeezed through the window-opening, feet first, and felt his way down the pa.s.sage to the door of the dungeon, where Tom was anxiously waiting for his deliverer. Bob made what a surgeon would call a "digital examination" of the dungeon door, and found its strength to be such that to break it down would require the rest of the night, if, indeed, there was any hope of achieving it at all in a dark hall-way, too narrow to admit of a free use of the crowbar.
"Dern the luck!" said Bob, pausing a moment.
"What"s the matter, Bob?" asked Tom anxiously.
But Bob did not seem to hear the question. "We must git a cole-chisel,"
was all he said; and he hastened to creep back out of the broken-up window.
"Whach yeh go"n" to do?" asked the waiting Zeke, as Bob emerged.
But Bob only said, "Come on, quick!" and started off in a swinging trot toward the village blacksmith shop, a low, longish, wooden building, barely visible in the darkness. He pulled at the door, but it was firmly closed with a padlock. Then he felt his way along the side of the building to a window-sash, which was easily taken out of its place.
"Heap uh use uh lockin" the door," he muttered, as he climbed in. "Blow up the belluses there un see ef you kin make a light."
Zeke, who had followed his leader, pumped away on the bellows in vain, for the fire in the forge had quite gone out, though the ashes were hot to Zeke"s touch. Both of the men set to work to find a blacksmith"s cold-chisel, feeling and fumbling all over the disorderly shop. As it often took the smith half an hour to find this particular tool, it would have been a marvel for two strangers to find it at all in the darkness.
"We"ll have to gin up the c"nundrum," said Bob, with his hands again in his pockets. "Didn" you say as you "lowed the sher"f was expectin"
Jake?"
"Yes," answered Zeke. "Jake"s got a kind-uv a secret urrangement weth Plunkett"s brother-in-law. They hain"t to be shootin"-work on nary side, but on"y jist a-plenty uv thunderin" loud talk fer the looks uv the thing. Jake"s to make the derndest kind uv a row, un the sher"f"s to talk about dyin" "n "is tracks un all that, you know. That "s some weeks ago"t the sher"f s brother-in-law fixed all that up, un Jake, he tole us they wouldn" be no danger."
"Turn your coat wrong sides out," said Bob, turning his own. "Now tie your han"kercher acrost yer face, so "s to kiver all below yer eyes."
When these directions had been carried out Bob climbed out of the window, and stopped to put his hands into his pockets again and consider.
"Whach yeh go"n" to do?" asked Zeke.
But Bob only asked, "What"ll we do fer pistols"?" and with that set himself to feeling all about the ground in front of the smith"s shop, picking up and rejecting now a bit of a dead bough from the great sycamore under the friendly shade of which the smith did all his horse-shoeing, now a bit of a board, and again a segment of a broken wagon-tire, and then a section of a felloe. At last Bob came upon the broken wheel of a farmer"s wagon, leaning against the side of the shop in waiting for repairs to its woodwork and a new tire. From this he wrenched two spokes and gave one of them to Zeke.
"There"s your pistol, Zeke. Put it jam up agin Plunkett"s head un tell him to hole still ur die. We"ve got to play Jake Hogan onto "im un git the keys. Th" ain"t nary nuther way."
As Bob pa.s.sed the jail in going toward the sheriff"s house he took along the crowbar. Plunkett lived in a two-story frame dwelling on the eastern margin of the village. Bob sent Zeke to run around it and pound on the back door and bang on every window with his wagon-spoke and his fists, while Bob himself dealt rousing blows on the front door with his crowbar. When Zeke had made the circuit of the house, Bob put the crowbar under the door.
"We mustn"t wait fer him to open, he"ll see how few we air," he whispered. "Prize away on this yer." Then, while Zeke lifted up on the bar, Bob hurled his whole bull weight against the door. The staple of the lock held fast, but the interior facing of the door-jamb was torn from its fastenings and fell with a crash on the floor, letting the door swing open. Not to lose the advantage of surprise, Bob and Zeke pushed up the stairway, guided by the noise made by some one moving about. By the time they reached Plunkett"s sleeping-room the latter had struck a light with steel and flint, and had just lighted a tallow-candle, which was beginning to shed a feeble glimmer on the bed, the rag-carpeted floor, the shuck-bottom chairs, and the half-dressed man, when Bob, coming up quickly behind him, blew the light out, and seizing Plunkett with the grip of a bear crowded him down to the floor with a smothered oath.
"Don"t kill me, boys," said the sheriff in a hoa.r.s.e whisper; for this rough usage frightened him a little, notwithstanding his good understanding with the mob.
"Say one word un you"re a dead man," said Zeke Tucker, pressing the cold muzzle of his wagon-spoke close to the sheriff"s head. These melodramatic words were, I am glad to say, a mere plagiarism. In the absence of anything better, Zeke repeated the speech of a highwayman in an old-fashioned novel he had heard Mrs. Britton read on Sunday afternoons. Then he added on his own account: "We won"t have no tricks; d" yeh h"yer?"
"They"s mor" "n forty uv us," said Bob, "un we want them air keys right straight."
"If I had half a chance I"d ruther die than give "em up,"--this was all that Plunkett could remember of the defiant speech he was to have made on this occasion,--"but there they air, at the head of my bed"; and a cold shudder went over him as Zeke again touched him ominously with the end of the wagon-spoke.
The sheriff"s wife, though she had every a.s.surance of the secret friendliness of the mob, now began to weep.
"Not a word!" said Bob, who was continually scuffling his feet, in order, like Hannibal and other great commanders, to make his forces seem more numerous than they were. "We won"t hurt you, Mrs. Plunkett, ef you keep still; but ef you make a noise while we"re gone, the boys outside might shoot."
The woman became silent.
"Some of our men"ll be left to guard your house till our business is finished," said Bob to the sheriff, who lay limp on the floor, growing internally angry that the Broad Run boys should not show more respect for his dignity. "Don"t you move or make any soun", fer yer life," added Bob when he reached the top of the stairs, down which he descended with racket enough for three or four.
As they left the house with the keys, Bob and Zeke gave orders in a low voice to an imaginary guard at the door.
All that Tom had made out was that the irruption of Bob McCord into the jail signified imminent danger to himself, and when Bob had gone out again, Tom"s heart failed him. He stood still, with his fingers on the iron grating in the dungeon door. For this last night the sheriff had taken the additional precaution of leaving Tom"s manacles on when he had locked him in the dungeon, and the lack of the free use of his hands added much to his sense of utter helplessness in the face of deadly peril. He could not see any light where he stood, gripping the bars and staring into the pa.s.sage-way; but he could not endure to leave this position and go back into the darker darkness behind him. Confinement and anxiety had sapped the physical groundwork of courage. When he heard Bob and Zeke come past the jail on their return from the blacksmith shop he had made out nothing but the sound of feet, whether of friends or foes he did not know; and when the sounds died away, a horror of deadly suspense fell upon him. All black and repulsive possibilities became imminent probabilities in the time that he waited. Over and over again he heard men and horses coming, and then discovered that he was hearkening to the throbbing of his own pulse. At last he heard the key turning in the lock of the front door, and was sure that the enemy had arrived. It was not till Bob said, when he had got into the hall and was trying the keys in the dungeon door, "Quick, Tom, fer G.o.d Almighty"s sake!" that his spirit, numb with terror, realized the presence of friends.
"What"s the matter?" asked Tom, his teeth chattering with reaction from the long suspense.
"Jake Hogan"ll be h-yer in less"n no time"; and with that Bob, having got the door open, almost dragged the poor fellow out, taking time, however, to shut the front door and lock it, and taking the keys with him, "fer fear somebody might git in while we"re away," as he said laughing.
Once the jail was cleared, a new perplexity arose. Until this moment it had not occurred to Bob to consider what disposal he should make of the prisoner.
"What am I goin" to do weth you, Tom?" he demanded, when they stood concealed in the thick obscurity under an elm-tree on the side of the court-house opposite to the jail. "I wonder "f you hadn" better light out?"
"Not without Abra"m says so," answered Tom, still shivering and feeling a strong impulse to run away in the face of all prudence.
"Looky h-yer, Tom; when I got the keys from the sher"f, I brought them all along. They "s the big key to the jail, un the key to the dungeon.
Now, h-yer, I"ve got two more. It seems like as ef one uv "em had orter onlock the east room of the jail, un liker "n not t" other"s the court-house key. S"pose"n I put you in there; they"ll never look there in the worl"."
"I s"pose so," said Tom, "if you think it"s safe." But in his present state he shuddered at the idea of being left alone in the dark. "If Abra"m thinks I"d better not clear out, I"ll be where I"m wanted in the morning, and they can"t say I have run off," he added.
So Tom was locked in the court-house and left to feel his way about in the dark. He found, at length, the judge"s bench, the only one with a cushion on it, and lay down there to wait for daylight, listening with painful attention to every sound in the streets. When at length he heard the tramp of horses and conjectured that Jake"s party were actually looking for him, he could not overcome the unreasonable terror that weakness and suspense had brought upon him. He groped his way up the stairs and slunk into one of the jury rooms above for greater security.
XXV
LIKE A WOLF ON THE FOLD
Barbara, at her uncle"s house, had not been able to go to bed. Tom"s fate, she knew, would be decided the next day, and whatever of hope there might be for him was hidden in the mind of his lawyer. Mrs.
Grayson had involuntarily fallen into a slumber, and the anxious Barbara sat by her in the darkness, wishing for the coming of the day, whose coming was nevertheless dreadful to her. The sound of a wagon rattling in another street startled her; she went to the window and strained her eyes against the darkness outside of the gla.s.s. Though she could not suspect that in the wagon was Bob McCord hurrying to the rescue of Tom, she was yet full of vague and indistinct forebodings. She wished she might have pa.s.sed the night in the jail. A little after midnight she thought she heard a sound as of horses" feet: again she went to the window, but she could not see or hear anything. Then again she heard it: there could be no mistake now; she could make out plainly the confused thudding of many hoofs on the unpaved road. Presently, from sound rather than from sight, she knew that a considerable troop of hors.e.m.e.n were pa.s.sing in front of her uncle"s house. She left the room quietly, and spoke to her uncle as she pa.s.sed his door; but without waiting for him she went out into the street and ran a little way after the hors.e.m.e.n, stopping, hearkening, turning this way and that in her indecision, and at length, after groping among the trees and stumps in the public square, reached the jail.
Jake Hogan had sent forward two men to watch the prison, while he with his main force surrounded Plunkett"s house. The sheriff had obediently kept his place where Bob had laid him, in the middle of the floor, until he got into a chill. Then, as he heard no sound outside of the house, his courage revived, and he crept back into bed.
Jake had come prepared to play the bully, according to agreement, in order to save Plunkett"s reputation for courage and fidelity, but he was disconcerted at finding the door of the house wide open; he had not expected that things would be made so easy. After stumbling over the fallen door-facing, he boldly mounted the stairs with as much noise as possible. Entering Plunkett"s bedroom, he cried out in what he conceived to be his most impressive tones: