The eventful morning at the opening of the "fall term" of the court of Moscow came at length. Mrs. Grayson again put her house into the care of her neighbor Mely McCord, and she arranged that Bob McCord should stay at home so as to feed the cattle that night and the next morning. It was thought that Tom's trial would take place on the second day. Mrs. Grayson and Barbara drove into Moscow early on the first day of court, that they might give Tom all the sympathy and assistance possible.
On that very first forenoon the grand jury heard such fragments of evidence as the public prosecutor thought necessary to bring before them, and found an indictment against Thomas Grayson, Junior, for murder in the first degree. In the prevailing state of public opinion a true bill would almost have been found if no evidence had been before them. Delay in such cases was not to be thought of in that time of summary justice; dilatory postponements were certainly not to be expected in a court presided over, as this one was, by Judge Watkins. He was a man approaching sixty years of age, with a sallow, withered face; a victim to hot biscuit and dyspepsia; arbitrary and petulant, but with deep-set, intelligent black eyes. Though his temper was infirm, his voice crabbed, and his administration of justice austere and unrelenting, he was eminently just, and full of the honorable if somewhat irascible pride of a Virginian with a superstitious reverence for his "family." Judge Watkins came of an ancestry who were famous only for courageously holding up their heads and doing nothing that they considered unworthy of gentlemen. Their greatest pride was that they had always been proud. The judge's coat hung loosely on his frame, and his trousers were generally drawn up in wrinkles so as to show the half of his boot-legs. His garments were, moreover, well worn and rather coarse; like his planter ancestors, he never fancied that dress could add anything to the dignity of a gentleman. The substantial distinction of a gentleman, in his estimation, consisted in being of a "good family," and in preferring to lose one's life rather than to lie, and to take another man's life rather than to suffer the reproach of falsehood or cowardice. It was characteristic of a Virginian of this type to have something like a detestation for clothes, except in so far as they served for decency and warmth; all the great difference which separated a respected gentleman from a despised fop lay in this fierce contempt for appearances. Judge Watkins left fine coats and gold watches for those who needed such decorations; he clothed himself in homespun and family pride.
When the indictment was read, the judge, looking from under his overhanging, grizzled eyebrows, said, "When can we try this case?" The counsel on both sides knew that he intended to dispatch this disagreeable business promptly. As he put the question, Judge Watkins looked first at Allen, the prosecuting attorney, and then at Lincoln.
"We are ready, your Honor," said the prosecuting attorney, a little man with a freckled face and a fidgety desire to score a point on every occasion. "I hope there'll be no delay, your Honor. The defense knew six weeks ago that a true bill would be found. They've had time enough to prepare, and I hope we shall be able to go on."
The judge listened impatiently to this, with the air of a man who has heard so much clap-trap that it has become nauseous to him. Indeed, before Allen had completed his little speech Judge Watkins had turned quite away from him and fastened his deep-set eyes on young Lincoln, who rose to his feet without succeeding in getting himself quite straight,—this was always a matter of time with him,—and said in a grave, half-despondent way:
"Your Honor, we are ready."
"I'll set the case for to-morrow, then," said the judge, and added in a sharper key, "Sheriff, command silence!" This last injunction was prompted by an incontinent rustle of interest in the court-room when the time for the murder trial was fixed for the next day. The judge's high-strung, irascible nerves, and his sense of the sacred dignity of his court, made him take offense at the slightest symptom of popular feeling.
The sheriff, who sat at the judge's left a little lower than the judge, now stood up and rapped with a mallet on the plank desk in front of him, and cried lustily, "Si—lence in court!"
And all was still again.
The judge's dignity would not admit of his addressing the commonalty, who, since they were neither members of the bar, court officers, witnesses, nor criminals, were beyond official recognition, but he said to the sheriff in a severe tone:
"Sheriff, you will arrest any person who makes any kind of disturbance in the court."
Then the business of the court went on. One after another of the spectators, whose interest was centered in the next day's session, rose and tip-toed softly out of the room. They did not all go at once, nor did any one of them go noisily. The judge had been known to fine a man for treading heavily, and those who wore squeaking boots were in misery until they were quite clear of the door.
The popular imagination had made Tom into something monstrous. Visitors to the village went to the jail window to look at him, as one might go to look at a wild beast. Confinement, solicitude, and uncertainty had worn upon him. He shrank nervously into the darker corners of the jail to avoid observation. His mind was a very shuttlecock between the battledores of hope and fear. He knew no more than the public of the purposes or expectations of his lawyer. All that Lincoln would say to Tom or his friends was that the case was a difficult one, and that it was better to leave the line of defense wholly to himself. But in proportion as Tom's counsel was uncommunicative about his plans rumor was outspoken and confident, though not always consistent in its account of them. It was reported that Tom was to plead guilty to manslaughter; that Lincoln would try to clear him on the ground of justifiable homicide in self-defense; and that the lawyer had found a man willing to swear that he was in company with Tom on another part of the ground at the very time of the shooting. In any case, it was decided that Lincoln would move for a change of venue, for it was well understood that in Moscow the accused did not stand "a ghost of a chance."
As the time of the court session drew on, a new and more exciting report had got abroad. It was everywhere said that Dave Sovine had been bought off, and that he was to get his money and leave the country in time to avoid testifying. How the story was set a-going, or who was responsible for it, no one could tell. Dave Sovine's conferences with Bob McCord may have raised surmises, for as the time of the trial approached, Dave grew more and more solicitous to get the hundred dollars and be off. He even hinted to Bob that he might refuse to accept it, if it did not come soon. Bob McCord had his own notions about the report. He thought that either Sovine had incontinently let the matter out, which was hardly probable, or that Abe Lincoln for some reason wanted such a belief to be spread abroad. Secretive and tricky as Bob was, there was a finesse about Lincoln's plans which he could not penetrate, and which led him more than once to remark that Abe was "powerful deep for a young feller." Whether the rumor was launched for a purpose or not, it had had the effect of waking up Allen, the public prosecutor, who put a watch on Sovine's movements, and gave his chief witness to understand that any attempt of his to leave the country, by night or day, would bring about his immediate arrest.
The story that Sovine had been bought off produced another result which could not have been desired by either of the lawyers: it fanned to a blaze the slumbering embers of Broad Run. Jake Hogan's abortive expedition to Perrysburg had left resentment rankling in his manly bosom. He had reluctantly given over the attempt to redeem himself by making a raid on Moscow the Sunday night following, when Deputy Sheriff Markham had pretended to look up a hypothetical wall-eyed, red-whiskered man, who was believed to have had some reason for killing George Lockwood. It was, indeed, only by degrees that Broad Run came to understand that its dignity had been again trifled with. The first result of its indignation was that the Broad Run clan, attributing to Sheriff Plunkett all the humiliation put upon it, had unanimously resolved to compass his defeat at the next election. Plunkett, having heard of this, promptly took measures to avert the defection of his good friends on the Run. Markham, as the principal author of the difficulty, was dismissed from his place of deputy on some trifling pretext. It did not cost Sheriff Plunkett serious pain to let him go; Markham was becoming too conspicuous a figure. It is the way of shrewd small men to cut down in time an apprentice who is likely to overtop the master. Then Plunkett told his brother-in-law to go out to Broad Run and explain things. Greater diplomatists than he have prepared to make use of irresponsible ambassadors when they had that to say which it might be necessary to repudiate. The brother-in-law was one of those men who like to take a hand in local politics, not for the sake of holding office themselves, but for the pleasure of intrigue for its own sake. He first sought Jake Hogan at his cabin, and sat and whittled with him on the wood-pile in the most friendly way, laughing at Jake's lank jokes, flattering his enormous self-love, and by every means in his power seeking to appease Hogan's wrath against the sheriff. The sheriff hadn't anything to do with running Tom off after the inquest, said the envoy,—Markham had done that. It was Markham who had peddled around the story of the man with red whiskers. Markham had got too big-feeling for his place. The sheriff saw that Markham was against the Broad Run boys, and so he put him out—dropped him like a hot potato, you know.
"Just consider," the brother-in-law urged, "how much Plunkett's done for the boys. He's refused tee-totally to let Tom go to Perrysburg. Plunkett ain't going to be dictated to by rich men like ole Tom Grayson. He knows who elected him. And he don't feel obliged to protect a murderer after the coroner's jury say's he's guilty."
"They's been talk of his shootin' if any reg'laters come around," said Jake.
"Himshoot?" answered the brother-in-law. "He's done everything he could not to put out the boys, and what 'u'd 'e shoot for? He ain't anxious to have the job of hangin' Tom Grayson. He's heard tell of sheriffs, 'fore now, that's felt themselves ha'nted as long's they lived, because they'd hanged a man. He ain't goin' to fight for the privilege of hangin' Tom, and he ain't the kind to do anythin' brash, and he ain't ag'inst good citizens like the boys on the Run—depend on that. Of course,"—here the brother-in-law picked up a new splinter and whittled it cautiously as he spoke,—"of course you know't the sheriff's give bonds. He's got to make a show of defending his prisoner. He's took 'n oath, you see, 'n' people expect him to resist. But if a lot of men comes, what can one man do? S'posin' they was to tie his hands, and then s'pose they was to say if he moved they'd shoot. Whatcouldhe do?"
The envoy stopped whittling and looked at Jake, giving the slightest possible wink with one eye. Jake nodded his head with the air of a man who is confident that he is not such a fool as to be unable to take a hint enforced by half a wink.
"What does 'n oath amount to with a pistol at your head?" the brother-in-law inquired; "an' what's the use of bonds if your hands are tied? You cantalkstrong; that don't hurt anybody."
Jake nodded again, and said, "In course."
"If you was to hear about the sheriff's sayin' he'd ruther die than give up his prisoner, you can just remember that he'sgotto talk that way; he's under bonds, and he's swore in, and the people expect him to talk about doin' his dooty. But you're too old a hand to set much store by talk?"
"Well, I 'low I am," said Hogan, greatly pleased that his experience and astuteness were at length coming in for due recognition.
Then when Jake was pretty well mollified, the brother-in-law adjourned himself and Jake to the grocery, where he treated the crowd, and in much more vague and non-committal terms let all the citizens that resorted thither understand that Sheriff Plunkett was their friend, and that Pete Markham was the friend of the rich men and the lawyers. But he took pains to leave the impression that Tom would certainly meet his deserts at the hands of the court, for the sheriff desired to avoid the embarrassment of a mob if he could.
The sweetness of Jake Hogan's spirit had been curdled by his disappointment and reverses, but these overtures from the sheriff to him as a high-contracting power were very flattering and assuring. When, a little later, the startling intelligence reached that center of social and intellectual activity, the Broad Run grocery, that Dave Sovine had been bought off, Broad Run was aroused, and Jake Hogan left off sulking in his tent and resumed his activity in public affairs.
"Didn't I tell you," he asked, leaning his back against the counter and supporting himself on his two elbows thrust behind him, while one of his legs, ending in a stogy boot, was braced out in front of him, "you can't hang the nephew 'v a rich man in such a dodrotted country as this yer Eelenoys? Dave Sovine's bought off, they say, by an ornery young lawyer un that air Bob McCord." Jake was too prudent to apply any degrading adjectives to a man of Bob's size and renown. "Dave'll light out the day afore the trial with rocks in his pockets, un that air young coward'll git clean off. Where's yer spunk, I'd like to know? 'F you're go'n' to be hornswoggled by lawyers like that air long-legged Abe Lincoln, un skin-flints like ole Seven-percent Tom Grayson, w'y, youkin, that's all."
Jake, with his head thrown forward, looked sternly around on the group about him, and they seemed to feel the reproach of his superior aggressiveness. Bijy Grimes was rendered so uneasy by Jake's regard that he shut his mouth; and then, not knowing what better to do, he ventured to ask humbly, "What kin we do about it, Jake?" letting his mouth drop open again in token that he waited for a reply.
"Do?" said Jake contemptuously. "W'y, chain-lightnin', Bijy, what a thing, now, to ax! Show me two dozen, ur evenonedozen, men that'll stan' at my back tell the blood runs, un I'll show 'em 't folks can't take a change of venoo out-uh the k-younty that knows all about the rascality into one that don't. I'll show 'em how to buy off witnesses, un I'll l'arn these yer dodrotted lawyers un rich men how to fool wreth the very bone un sinoo uv the land."
Notwithstanding the natural love of these men for a little excitement, they had been rendered somewhat unresponsive by Jake's failures. The most of them thought it best to go to town on the day of the trial and see how it would come out. But at 6 o'clock in the evening of the first day of court, Lew Baker, a farmer from the river valley beyond the Run, rode past the door of the grocery on his way home, and said a collective "Howdy" to the three or four who stood outside. Bijy Grimes, who was one of them, came out toward the middle of the road heading off the traveler.
"Hello, Lew! Any nooze about the trial?" he said, dropping his lower jaw from between his fat infantile cheeks and waiting for a reply, while the rest of the group moved up to hearing distance.
"Well, yes," said Baker, pulling up his horse and swinging himself round in the saddle so as to bring the most of his weight on the right stirrup, while he rested his left elbow on his left knee and his right hand on the horse's mane. "I heern tell, jest as I come away, that Dave what-ye-may-call-'im, the witness, had sloped, liker'n not. He hain't been seed aroun' for a right smart while, un they say he's gone off to New Urleansur the Injun country. Moscow's stirred up about it."
"Tu-lah!" said Bijy. "They 'low he'll be got off, don't they!"
"They're shore sumpin's fixed, fer the young feller's lawyer hain't soopeenied a derned witness."
"Tu-lah!" said Bijy. "Is that a fack?"
"Shore 's shootin', they say. He's to be got off somehow, I s'pose."
"Tu-laws-a-massy!" broke out Bijy; and turning to his fellow-loafers he said, "That'll rile Jake purty consid'able, now won't it?"
It did stir up Jake when he heard of it. He promptly set to work to form a company to descend at once on Moscow and take the case out of the hands of the dodrotted lawyers. He could not at so late an hour get together more than twenty or twenty-five men from Broad Run and the regions within warning distance. Some of these joined him only because they could not endure to have anything very exciting take place in their absence: it would entail the necessity of their hearing for the rest of their lives the account given of the affair by the participators, who would always value themselves on it. Some of the larger boys, whose aid had been rejected in the previous excursion because they were not accounted mature enough for such public responsibilities, were now admitted: the company would be small, and a boy is better than nobody in a pinch. S'manthy's oldest son, a tow-headed fellow of fifteen, was one of these, and he was sent over the hill to warn Zeke Tucker, who was still at Britton's, a mile away from the borders of what was distinctively called "the Run Neighborhood."
The September twilight was already fading when the lad presented himself in front of Zeke Tucker, who sat perched on top of a rail fence for rest and observation after his day's work. Mrs. Britton was making the house over-warm, and Zeke preferred the fresh air.
"I say, Zeke," said the breathless boy, "it's to come off to-night, un I'm a-goin', by hokey!"
"What's to come off to-night?"
"W'y, the hangin'—the hangin' of that young chap Tom down't Moscow; un I'm goin' to take grandad's ole flint-lock."
"Your grandad's ole flint-lock! You might as well take a stick," said Zeke.
"Oh! it'll go off ef you tech it off weth a coal of fire, but I don't 'low I kin find any coal to tech it off weth down thar," and S'manthy's son scratched his head thoughtfully. "But, anyways, it'll look like a gun in the night."
"Yes, un you'll look like a man, I s'pose. But what time's Jake goin'?"
"Twix' ten un 'leven. Donchoo be late."
"You tell Jake not to go, noways, wethout me," said Zeke, hoping by this to delay Jake's start.
Zeke sat restless on the fence until S'manthy's boy, exultant that his manhood was to be recognized by his admission to the band, had gone out of sight in the direction of the grocery. Then Zeke sprang from the fence and started, as fast as legs could carry, along an old Indian trail, hoping by this disused and in some places obstructed short cut across the prairie to save a mile of the eight-miles' journey to Bob McCord's cabin. Bob was already abed when Zeke, badly blown by his rapid walking, knocked at the door.
"Who's there?" called Bob, emerging from his first heavy sleep.
"It's me—Zeke Tucker! Git up, quick, Bob! Jake Hogan's off at ten 'r 'leven, un it's nigh onto that a'ready." And Zeke impatiently rattled the door of the cabin, the latch-string of which had been drawn in to lock it.
Bob came down on the floor with a thump, and his few clothes were soon pulled on; then he came out and stood in the fresh air, on the "butt-cut" of a tulip-tree, or "flowering poplar," which, to compensate for the descent of the hill-side, had been laid against the bottom log of his cabin for a front-door step. Zeke explained to him how urgent the case was.
"Baub! don't you go 'n' go off down to Moscow to-night," called Mrs. McCord. "They hain't no airthly use in your botherin' yourself so much about other folkses business. You'd orter stay'n' look arter your own wife un childern." It was Mrs. McCord's invariable habit to object, in her plaintive and impotent fashion, to everything her husband proposed to do. She had not the slightest expectation that he would remain at home in consequence of anything she might say, nor did she care that he should; but she had a vocation to hold in check his thriftless propensities. This she tried to do by protests uttered indiscriminately against all his outgoings and his incomings, his downsittings and his uprisings.
"We ain't got no hoss," said Bob, replying to Zeke, and paying no heed to his wife. "Mrs. Grayson un Barb'ry 've gone un gone to town weth ole Blaze, so's to be weth Tom airly in the mornin'. What on yerth to do I don't noways see." Bob was standing with his fists in his pockets, looking off anxiously toward the horizon.
"Can't you git Butts's?" said Zeke.
"Thunder! No! Buttses un Graysons don't hitch. Butts don't speak to none uv'em, un he hates Tom the wust, fer throwin' rocks at his geese when they got into the medder, un dauggin' his haugs out-uh the corn. They'd a leetle rather Tom'd be lynched un not. By blazes! I'vegotto git one of Butts's hosses right straight off. Buchanan's hoss is lame, un they hain't nary nuther one to be got this side uv Albaugh's, and that's too fur away. You go down to the branch un wait fer me, un I'll git Butts's little wagon. I 'low they'll be hoppin' mad 'f they fine out what I got it fer, but I've got to git it, 'f I have to steal it. They hain't no two ways about it."
"I don't think you'd ortuh go off that a-way, Baub," began Mrs. McCord again. "Un me more 'n half sick. I've been feelin' kind-uh slarruppy like fer two 'r three days. Un them air taters is to be dug, un Mely's gone away. You 'n' Zeke Tucker 'll make a purty fist uv it a-lickin' all Broad Run, now, wonch yeh? Wha' choo got to do weth Jake—"
But Bob did not hear the rest of it, nor was it ever uttered indeed. For Mrs. McCord, when she found that her husband had gone, did not think it worth while to finish her lamentations; she only drew a sigh of complacent long-suffering and submission to fate, and went to sleep.
Hardened sinner that he was, Big Bob felt a little twinge of shame as he made his way rapidly to Butts's house. His wife's set speech about being more than half sick, often as he had heard it, and little as he had ever heeded it, had now made a sufficient lodgment in his consciousness to suggest a way out of his difficulty; but it was a way which a loafer of the superior sort, such as Bob, might feel ashamed to take, knowing that such a scheme as he was concocting would be an outrage on all the sacred principles of good neighborhood—an outrage only to be justified by military necessity. All the way to Butts's, hurried as he was, his hands were ramming his trousers-pockets, after his fashion of groping there for a solution of his difficulties. It was the carrying over into other affairs the habitual research which the hunter makes for bullets, caps, patching, or jack-knife to meet the exigencies of the forest.
Arrived at the unpainted, new frame-house, which, being two feet longer and one foot broader than any other in the neighborhood, was the particular pride of the Butts family, he noted that all the lights were out, and after hesitating whether to capture the horse by stealth or by strategy, he went to the front door and rapped. The head of the proprietor came out of one of the lower windows with an abrupt "Who's there?" spoken with that irritation a weary man is prone to express when awakened from his first nap to attend to some one else's wants.
"I say, Mr. Butts," said Bob, pushing his hands harder against the bottoms of his pockets, "kin I git the loan uv one uv your hosses un your leetle wagon to fetch the doctor? My ole woman's purty bad; been sick ever sence the sun was 'n 'our high, un we can't git nothin' to do no good."
"What seems to be the matter?" said Butts, wishing to postpone an unpleasant decision.
Bob hesitated a moment: lying is a dangerous business unless it is carried on with circumspection. "Blamed 'f I know jestwhatit is. I suspicion it's thedyspepsy."
The name of dyspepsia was new to the country at that day, though the complaint was ancient enough, no doubt. Just whatdyspepsy might be Bob did not know, but he hit on it as the vaguest term he could recall and one that had a threatening sound. It would not have served his purpose to have repeated Mrs. McCord's diagnosis of her own case, that she was "feelin' kind-uh slarruppy like." "Whatever 'tis, she don't think she kin git through till mornin' 'thout I git a doctor."
"Well, I doan know. The sorrel's lame; un I don't like to let the bay colt go noways, he's sech a sperrited critter."
Butts drew his head in at this point to consult with Mrs. Butts as to how he could evade lending the cherished bay colt.
"Looky h-yer, Mr. McCord," presently called Mrs. Butts, keeping her nightcapped head well out of sight as she spoke, "you don't want no doctor nohow." Mrs. Butts had come by virtue of superior credulity to hold the position of neighborhood doctress, and she was not friendly to regular physicians. "You jest take along with you a bottle of my new medicine, 't I call the 'Scatter Misery,' It's made out-uh roots an' yarbs, an' it's the best thing I know fer mos' every kind of complaint. It's good insides an' outsides. You rub the Scatter Misery onto the outsides un give her a swaller now un then insides. It'll fetch 'er 'roun' in an hour or two."
Bob felt himself fairly entangled in his own intrigue, but he gave his great fists another push into his trousers-pockets and said:
"I'm much obleeged, Mrs. Butts, but my ole woman tole me ez I wuzn't to come back 'thout a doctor; un ef you hain't got no critter you kin len' me, I mus' be a-gittin' 'long down to Albaugh's mighty quick. That's a powerful ways off, though. I wish I'd gone there straight un not come over h-yer."
This last was uttered in a tone of plaintive disappointment as Bob turned away, walking slowly and giving the family council time to change its mind.
"Aw, well, Bob," called Butts, 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 Butts 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 passed 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 Butts'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 passage-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 passage 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 passed 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 hoarse 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 assurance 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 passage-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 God 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.
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 glass. 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 passed 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 horsemen were passing in front of her uncle's house. She left the room quietly, and spoke to her uncle as she passed his door; but without waiting for him she went out into the street and ran a little way after the horsemen, 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:
"Gin up the keys of that ar jail, ur your time has come."
"What air you up to now?" cried the sheriff, angry at this second visit. "You knocked me down and got the keys nigh on to an hour ago. Now what in thunderation does this hullabaloo mean, I want to know."
"Wha' choo talkin'?" said Jake. "We hain't on'y jest got yer."
"Only just got here?" said the sheriff, rising up in bed. "Only just come? Then there's another crowd that must 'a' done the business ahead of you. There was more 'n forty men surrounded this house awhile ago, and beat down my door, and come upstairs here in this room, and knocked me down and choked me black and blue and went off with the keys. I guess they've hung Tom and gone before this."
"Looky h-yer now, we don't want no more uv your tricks. We're the on'y party out to-night, sartin shore, un we're boun' to have them air keys ur die," said Jake, tragically. "You might's well gin 'em up fustaslast, Hank Plunkett, un save yourself trouble."
"Well, if you want 'em, you'll have to look 'em up," said the sheriff. "I haven't got 'em, and I'll be hanged if I know who has. I was knocked down and nearly killed by a whole lot of men. Kill me, if you've got a mind to, but you won't find the keys in this house. So there now." And he lay back on his pillow.
"Come on, boys; we'll s'arch the jail. Un ef we've been fooled weth, Hank Plunkett'll have to pay fer it."
With that the Broad Run boys departed and the sheriff got up and dressed himself. There was a mystery about two lynching parties in one night; and there might be something in it that would affect his bond or his political prospects if it were not looked into at once. He resolved to alarm the town.
At the jail door Hogan encountered Barbara piteously begging the men to spare her brother's life.
"Looky h-yer," he said, in a graveyard voice, "this ain't no kind uv a place fer women folks. You go 'way."
"No, I won't go away. I'm Tom's sister and I won't leave him. You mustn't shoot him. He didn't kill George Lockwood."
"You mus' go 'way, ur you'll git shot yer own self," said Jake.
"Well, shoot me—d' you think I care? I'd rather die with Tom. I know your voice, Jake Hogan; and if you kill Tom you'll be a murderer, for he isn't."
"Take her away, boys," said Jake, a little shaken by this unexpected appeal. But nobody offered to remove Barbara. All of these rude fellows were touched at sight of her tears. It had not occurred to them to take into account the sister or the mother when they thoughtlessly resolved to hang Tom. But the path of the reformer is always beset by such thorns.
"Down weth that ar door!" cried Jake, not to be baffled in his resolution, and convinced by Barbara's solicitude that Tom was certainly within. There was reason for haste too, for the villagers were already stirring, and there might be opposition to his summary proceedings. But pompous commands have not much effect on heavy doors, and Jake found that this one would not down so easily as he hoped. Jake began pounding on it with the poll of an ax borrowed from a neighboring wood-pile, and meanwhile dispatched two men to break open the blacksmith shop and fetch a sledge-hammer. But S'manthy's boy, on his own motion, went around to the back of the jail with the purpose of trying the window. Finding it as Bob had left it, with the grating torn out, he entered the jail and penetrated to the dungeon, coming back presently to tell Jake that he had found the window out, the dungeon door open, and Tom "clean gone."
"Thunder!" said Jake, dropping his ax. "Who could they be? The shuruff says they wuz more 'n forty on 'em; so they couldn't be rescuers. They hain't ten men in the wide worl' 'at thinks Tom's innercent. Like 's not it's a lot uv fellers f'um the south-east of the k-younty, down towardsHardscrabble, whar Lockwood had some kin. They've hung him summers. Let's ride 'roun' un see ef we kin fin' any traces. Un ef Hank Plunkett has played a trick, we'll git squar' some day, ur my name hain't Hogan."
The men mounted and rode off. Barbara, who stood by in agony while Jake beat upon the door, and who had heard the report that Tom was gone, could not resist the despairing conclusion that he must have suffered death. In her broken-hearted perplexity she could think of nothing better than to hurry to the tavern where Hiram Mason was a boarder. Half the people of the village were by this time in the streets, running here and there and saying the most contradictory things. Mason had been awakened with the rest, and by the time Barbara reached the tavern door, she encountered him coming out.
"W'y, Barbara! for goodness' sake, what brought you out? Whathashappened?" he said.
"O Mr. Mason! I'm afraid Tom's dead. I ran after Jake Hogan and his men when I heard them pass, and begged Jake to let Tom off. They tried to drive me away, but I staid; and when they got into jail, Tom wasn't there. Jake said that the sheriff said he had been taken away and lynched by more than forty men. Oh, if they have killed the poor boy!"
"Maybe it isn't so bad," said Hiram, as he took her left hand in his right and led her, as he might have led a weeping child, along the dark street toward her uncle's house. "Don't cry any more, Barbara!"
"I shouldn't wonder," he said, after a while, "if Bob McCord knows something of this."
"But we left him at home to-night," said Barbara; and then she began to weep again, and to say over and over in an undertone, "O my poor Tom!"
Mason could not say any more. He only grasped her hand the more firmly in his and walked on. Presently a wagon came across the walk just in front of them, issuing from an alley.
"That's Butts's wagon, and that's his bay colt, I do believe," said Barbara, looking sharply at the dark silhouette of the horse. "I know the way that horse carries his head. I wonder if Butts has been mean enough to have anything to do with this wicked business."
What Barbara saw was Zeke Tucker hastening to replace the horse in the stable, while Bob remained in town to keep a furtive watch over the court-house till morning. Mason thought he saw some one moving in the alley, and a detective impulse seized him.
"Stay here a moment, Barbara," he said, and letting go of her hand he ran into the alley and came plump upon the burly form of Bob McCord.
"It's all right, Mr. Mason," chuckled Bob. "Tom's safe 'n' soun' where they'll never find him. By thunder!" And Bob looked ready to explode with laughter; the whole thing was to him one of the best of jokes.
"Come and tell Barbara," said Mason.
Bob came out of the alley to where Barbara was standing near the white-spotted trunk of a young sycamore, and recounted briefly how he had fooled Butts, and how he had got the keys from Plunkett. His resonant laughter grated on Barbara's feelings, but she was too grateful to him to resent the rudeness of his nature.
"Where is Tom?" Barbara asked.
"Oh! I'm a-playin' Abe Lincoln," said Bob in a whisper. "The fewer that knows, the better it'll be. Tom says he won't light out, unless Abra'm says to. Speak'n' of Abe Lincoln," he said, "I don't want to be seed weth him to-night. You go back, Mr. Mason, un tell Abe 't Tom's safe. Ef he thinks Tom's chances is better to stan' trial, w'y, he'll find 'im in the court-house to-morry when the court wants 'im, shore as shootin'. He's on'y out on bail to-night," said Bob, unwilling to lose his joke. "But ef Abe thinks Tom hain't got no chance afore a jury, let 'im jest wink one eye, kind-uh, un 'fore daybreak I'll have the boy tucked into a bear's hole 't I know of, un he kin lay there safe fer a week un then put out for Wisconsin, ur Missouri, ur the Ioway country. You go 'n' let Abe know, un I'll see Barb'ry safe home—she won't gimme the mitten to-night, I 'low." And Bob chuckled heartily; life was all so droll to this man, blessed with a perfect digestion and not worried by any considerable sense of responsibility.
Mason went up to Lincoln's room and awakened him to tell him the story of the night. The lawyer's face relaxed, and at length he broke into a merry but restrained laughter. He saw almost as much fun in it as Bob McCord had, and Mason felt a little out of patience that he should be so much amused over such a life-and-death affair.
"Tom doesn't want to be an outlaw," said Lincoln very gravely, when the question of Tom's going or staying was put to him. "I don't believe he could escape; and if he did, life would hardly be worth the having. There is only just one chance of proving his innocence, but I think he'd better stay and take that. Maybe we'll fail; if we do, it may yet be time enough to fall back on Bob and his bear's hole. By the way, where has Bob stowed Tom for the night?"
"Bob won't tell," said Mason. "He says he's playing Abe Lincoln; and the fewer that know, the better."
Lincoln laughed again, and nodded his head approvingly. "So he brings Tom to court in good time," he said.
Mason went out and encountered Bob in the street, and gave him Lincoln's decision. Then Hiram went and told Barbara about it, and sat with her and her mother until morning. A while before daybreak, finding the town free from any person disposed to molest Tom, Bob came to Barbara and had her make a cup of coffee and give him a sandwich or two. These he took out of the back gate of the Grayson garden and left them with Tom in the court-house.
The next morning at half-past 6 o'clock the lawyers of the circuit took their seats at the breakfast-table in the meagerly furnished, fly-specked dining-room of the tavern, the windows of which were decorated with limp chintz curtains, and the space of which was entirely filled with the odors of coffee and fried ham, mingled with smells emitted by the rough-coat plastering and the poplar of the woodwork: this compound odor of the building was a genius of the place. The old judge, who sat at the end of the table opposite to that occupied by the landlady, spread his red silk handkerchief across his lap preparatory to beginning his meal, and looked up from under his overhanging brows at Lincoln, who was just taking his seat.
"What's this, Lincoln? I hear your client was carried off last night by a mob of forty or fifty men and probably hanged. And you don't even get up early to see about it."
"My client will be in court this morning, Judge," said the lawyer, looking up from his plate.
"What!"
"I am informed that he is in a safe place, and he will be ready for trial this morning."
"Where is he?" asked the judge, looking penetratingly at Lincoln.