"Before God Almighty, Barb," he answered, "I didn't shoot George Lockwood, and I didn't even see him on the camp-ground. I wasn't in that part of the woods, and I hadn't any pistol."
"Tom, I believe you," said Barbara, sobbing on his shoulder. Wondering that her brother did not return her embrace, she looked down and saw his handcuffs, and felt, as she had not before, the horror of his situation.
Mrs. Grayson now gently pushed Barbara aside and approached Tom.
"I didn't do it, mother," said Tom; "I didn't do it."
"Of course you did n't, Tommy; I never thought you did—I just knew you couldn't do it." And she put her trembling arms about him.
Hiram had gone into the corridor from motives of delicacy.
"Couldn't you move him into the east room?" he said to the sheriff. "It's too bad to have to lie in that dungeon, without air, and in August too. And is it necessary to keep his handcuffs on?"
"Well, you see, it's the regular thing to put a man into the dungeon that's up for murder, and to put handcuffs on. The jail's rather weak, you know; and if he should escape—I'd be blamed."
Mason went into the dark room and examined the dirty, uncomfortable cot, and felt of the damp walls. Then he returned to the east room just as Tom was explaining his flight from the camp-ground.
"I saw a rush," he said, "and I went with the rest. A man was telling in the dark that George Lockwood had been shot, and that they were looking for a fellow named Grayson and were going to hang him to the first tree. I ran across the fields to our house, and by the time I got there I saw that I'd made a mistake. I ought to have come straight to Moscow. I went into the house and came out to go to Moscow and give myself up, but I met the sheriff at the gate."
"The first thing is the inquest," said Mason. "Have you thought about a lawyer?"
"There's no use of a lawyer for that," said Tom. "My fool talk about killing Lockwood is circumstantial evidence against me, and I'll certainly be held for trial—unless the real murderer should turn up. And I don't know who that can be. I've puzzled over it all night."
"You studied with Mr. Blackman, I believe," said Mason. "Couldn't you get him to defend you?"
"I don't know that I want him. He's already prejudiced against me. He wouldn't believe that I was innocent, and so he couldn't do any good."
"But you've got to have somebody," said Barbara.
"I've been over the whole list," said Tom, "and I'd rather have Abra'm than anybody else."
"Abra'm 'll do it," said Mrs. Grayson; "I kin git him to do it. He's a little beholden to me fer what I done fer him when he was little. But he's purty new to the law-business, Tommy."
"Abra'm Lincoln's rather new, but he's got a long head for managing a case, and he's honest and friendly to us. The circuit court begins over at Perrysburg to-morrow, and he'll like as not stop at the tavern here for dinner to-day. You might see him, mother."
"Tom! Tom!" The voice was a child's, and it came from the outside of the window-grating. A child's fingers were clutched upon the stones beyond the grating; and before Tom could answer, the brown head of Janet Grayson was lifted to the level of the high, square little window, and her blue eyes were peering into the obscurity of the prison.
"Tom, are you there? Did they give you any breakfast?" she faltered, startled and ready to cry at finding herself calling into a place so obscure and apparently so void.
"O Janet! is that you?" said Tom, putting his face to the grating. "You blessed little soul, you! But you must n't come to this dreadful place." And Tom tried to wipe his eyes with his sleeve.
"Yes, but I am sorry for you, Cousin Tom," she said, dropping to the ground again and turning her head on one side deprecatingly; "and I was afraid they wouldn't give you enough to eat. Here's three biscuits." She pulled them out of her pocket with difficulty and pushed them through the grating.
"Thank you, thank you," said Tom. "You are a dear loving little darling. But see here, Janet, you'd better not come here any more; and don't call me cousin. It's too bad you should have to be ashamed of your cousin."
"But I will call you cousin, an' I don' care what they say. Are you in there, too, Barbara? You didn't kill anybody, did you?"
"No; neither did Tom," said Barbara, leaning down to the window.
"Janet," said Tom, "d' you tell Uncle Tom and Aunt Charlotte that I didn't shoot anybody. They won't believe you, but it's a fact."
Janet had heard the news at the breakfast-table. Sheriff Plunkett, wishing to conciliate so influential a person as Thomas Grayson the elder, had sent him word very early of the unfortunate predicament in which Tom found himself, and had offered to comply with any wishes Mr. Grayson might express concerning his nephew, so far as the rigor of the law allowed. To steady-going people like the Graysons the arrest of Tom on such a charge was a severe blow; and his execution would compromise for all time their hitherto unsullied respectability in their little world. They drank their breakfast coffee and ate their warm biscuit and butter and fried ham and eggs with rueful faces. The comments they made on Tom's career were embittered by their own share of the penalty. Janet had listened till she had made out that Tom was in jail for killing somebody. Then, after hearing some rather severe remarks from her parents about Tom, she burst into tears, rose up and stamped her feet in passion, and stormed in her impotent, infantile way at her father and mother and the people who had locked up Tom in jail. When the first gust of her indignation had found vent, she fled into the garden to cool off, as was her wont. After awhile she came back and foraged in the kitchen, where she pounced upon three biscuits which had been left on a plate by the fire to keep them warm. With these she had made off through the back gate of the garden, thence down the alley and across the public square to the jail.
Meantime a lively discussion was carried on in the house.
"We've got to do something for Tom, I suppose," said Mrs. Grayson, after the question of his blameworthiness was exhausted. "He's your nephew, and we can't get around that. Goodness knows he's given us trouble enough, and expense enough, already." It was a favorite illusion with the Graysons that they had spent money on Tom, though he had earned all he had received.
"Yes," said Grayson reluctantly; "it'll be expected of us, Charlotte, to stand by him. He's got no father, you know. And I suppose George Lockwood was aggravating enough."
"The Lord knows I'm sorry for Tom; he was always good to Janet." This reminded Mrs. Grayson of her daughter, and she went to the open door of the dining-room and called, "Janet! O Janet! It's curious how she stands by Tom. She's off in the sulks, and won't answer a word I say. I suppose you'll have to go his bail," she said with apprehension.
"No, it's not bailable. They don't bail prisoners charged with capital offenses."
"That's a good thing, anyhow. I hate to have you go security."
"I suppose Martha'll be able to pay the lawyers," said Thomas Grayson. "She won't expect us to do any more for Tom. It's bad enough to have to stand the disgrace of it."
"Janet! Janet! O Janet!" called Mrs. Grayson anxiously. "I declare, I'm uneasy about that child; it's nearly half an hour since she went out. I wish you'd go and have a look for her."
But at that moment Janet rushed in breathless through the kitchen.
"O Pa! I've been over to the jail to see Tom."
"You've been to the jail!" said Grayson, recoiling in his heart from such an experience for Janet.
"Yes, an' they've put Barbara and Aunt Martha in there too, along with Tom." She was bursting with indignation.
"Thomas," said Mrs. Grayson, as she gathered up the hitherto neglected breakfast plates, "Martha and Barbara have come from home this morning."
"I suppose so," said Grayson, looking out of the window.
"Now it's not going to do for us to let them go without coming here to breakfast," said the wife. "People will say we're hardhearted; and when they once get to talking there's no knowing what they won't say. They might blame us about Tom, though the Lord knows we did our best for him."
"Will you go and ask Martha and Barbara to come over?" said Grayson, with a sneaking desire to escape the disagreeable duty.
"I can't bear to," said his wife. "I hate to go to the jail and see Tom there. Besides, if they're coming I must make some coffee."
Grayson stood still and looked out of the window.
"Will they let them come if you ask 'em?" inquired Janet.
"Let who come?" said her father abstractedly.
"Aunt Martha and Barbara and Tom."
"Of course they'll not keep your Aunt Martha nor Barbara. They haven't killed anybody."
"Neither has Tom. He told me to tell you he hadn't."
"I suppose they all talk that way. 'T ain't like Tom to lie about anything though. He generally faces it out, rain, hail, or shine. I wish to goodness he could prove that he didn't kill George. Where are you going, Janet?"
"To fetch Aunt Martha and Barbara. I wish they'd let Tom come too."
Grayson spent as much time as possible in getting his hat and looking it over before putting it on. Then, when he could think of no other pretext for delay, he started as slowly as possible, in order to give Janet time to fetch his relatives away from the jail before he should encounter them. Janet found her aunt coming out of the prison in order to allow the sheriff to go to breakfast.
"Aunt Martha," cried Janet, "Ma wants you an' Barbara to come to breakfast. She sent me to tell you."
"I don't like to go there," said Barbara to her mother in an undertone.
But Mason, who was behind, perceiving Barbara's hesitation, came up and whispered: "You'd better go, Barbara. Tom will need all the help he can get from your uncle's position. And I'll take the horse and put him into your uncle's stable."
The village of Moscow was founded by adventurous pioneers while yet Napoleon's Russian expedition was fresh in all men's minds, and took from that memory its Russian name, which, like most other transplanted names of the sort, was universally mispronounced. The village had been planted in what is called an "island," that is, a grove surrounded by prairie on every side. The early settlers in Illinois were afraid to seat themselves far from wood. As it stands to-day the pretty town is arranged about a large public square, neatly fenced, and with long hitching-rails on all four sides of it. The inside of the square is trimly kept, and is amply shaded by old forest-trees—the last survivors of the grove that formed the "island." Moscow contains a court-house, which is pretentious and costly, if not quite elegant, besides other public buildings. On the streets facing this park-like square nearly all the trade of the thriving country-town is carried on. But in the time of Tom Grayson's imprisonment the public square was yet a rough piece of woods, with roots and stumps still obtruding where underbrush and trees had been cut out. There was no fence, and there were no hitching-rails. The court-house of that day was a newish frame building, which had the public-grounds all to itself except for the jail, on one corner of the square. Facing the square, on the side farthest from the jail, stood the village tavern. One half of it was of hewn logs, which marked it as dating back to the broad-ax period of the town's growth; the other half had been added after the saw-mill age began, and was yet innocent of paint, as were the court-house and several other of the principal buildings in the town. In front of the tavern was a native beech-tree, left behind in the general destruction. Under it were some rude benches which afforded a cool and favorite resort to the leisurely villagers. One of the boughs of this tree served its day and generation doubly, for besides contributing to the shadiness of the street-corner, it supported a pendant square sign, which creaked most dolefully whenever there was wind enough to set it swinging in its rusty iron sockets. The name of the hotel was one common to villages of small attainments and great hopes; the sign bore for legend in red letters: "City Hotel, R. Biggs."
To the City Hotel there came, on this first day after Tom's arrest, one of those solitary horsemen who gave life to nearly every landscape and mystery to nearly every novel of that generation. This horseman, after the fashion of the age, carried his luggage in a pair of saddle-bags, which kept time to his horse's trot by rapping against the flaps of his saddle.
"Howdy, Cap'n Biggs," said the traveler to the landlord, who was leaning solidly against the door-jamb and showing no sign of animation, except by slowly and intermittently working his jaws in the manner of a ruminating cow.
"Howdy, Abe," was the answer. "Where yeh boun' fer?"
"Perrysburg," said the new arrival, alighting and stretching the kinks out of his long, lank limbs, the horse meanwhile putting his head half-way to the ground and moving farther into the cool shade. Then the horseman proceeded to disengage his saddle-bags from the stirrup-straps, now on one side of the horse and then on the other.
"Have yer hoss fed some corn?" In asking this question Captain Biggs with some difficulty succeeded in detaching himself from the door-post, bringing his weight perpendicularly upon his legs; this accomplished he sluggishly descended the three door-steps to the ground and took hold of the bridle.
"What's this I hear about Tom Grayson, Cap'n?" said the new-comer, as he tried to pull and wriggle his trousers-legs down to their normal place.
"Oh, he's gone 'n' shot Lockwood, like the blasted fool he is. He wuz blowin' about it afore he lef' town las' month, but nobody reckoned it wuz anything but blow. Some trouble about k-yards an' a purty gal—John Albaugh's gal. I s'pose Tom's got to swing fer it, 'nless you kin kinder bewilder the jury like, an' git him off. Ole Mis' Grayson's in the settin'-room now, a-waitin' to see you about it."
Captain Biggs lifted his face, on which was a week's growth of stubby beard, to see how his guest would take this information. The tall, awkward young lawyer only drew his brow to a frown and said nothing; but turned and went into the tavern with his saddle-bags on his arm, and walking stiffly from being so long cramped in riding. Passing through the cool bar-room with its moist odors of mixed drinks, he crossed the hall into the rag-carpeted sitting-room beyond.
"Oh Abra'm, I'm that glad to see you!" But here the old lady's feelings overcame her and she could not go on.
"Howdy, Mrs. Grayson. It's too bad about Tom. How did he come to do it?"
"Lawsy, honey, he didn't do it."
"You think he didn't?"
"I know he didn't. He says so himself. I've been a-waitin' here all the mornin' to see you, an' git you to defend him."
The lawyer sat down on the wooden settee by Mrs. Grayson, and after a little time of silence said:
"You'd better get some older man, like Blackman."
"Tom won't have Blackman; he won't have nobody but Abe Lincoln, he says."
"But—they say the evidence is all against him; and if that's the case, an inexperienced man like me couldn't do any good."
Mrs. Grayson looked at him piteously as she detected his reluctance.
"Abra'm, he's all the boy I've got left. Ef you'll defend him I'll give you my farm an' make out the deed before you begin. An' that's all I've got."
"Farm be hanged!" said Lincoln. "Do you think I don't remember your goodness to me when I was a little wretch with my toes sticking out of my ragged shoes! I wouldn't take a copper from you. But you're Tom's mother, and of course you think he didn't do it. Now what if the evidence proves that he did?"
Barbara had been sitting in one corner of the room, and Lincoln had not observed her in the obscurity produced by the shade of the green slat curtains. She got up and came forward. "Abra'm, do you remember me?"
"Is this little Barby?" he said, scanning her face. "You're a young woman now, I declare."
There was a simple tenderness in his voice that showed how deeply he felt the trouble that had befallen the Graysons.
"Well, I want to say, Abra'm," Barbara went on, "that after talking to Tom we believe that he doesn't know anything about the shooting. Now you'd better go and see him for yourself."
"Well, I'll tell you what, Aunt Marthy," said he, relapsing into the familiar form of address he had been accustomed to use toward Mrs. Grayson in his boyhood; "I'll go over and see Tom, and if he is innocent, as you and Barby think, we'll manage to save him or know the reason why. But I must see him alone, and he mustn't know about my talk with you."
Lincoln got up, and laying his saddle-bags down in one corner of the room went out immediately. First he went to inquire of Sheriff Plunkett what was the nature of the evidence likely to be brought against Tom. Then he got the sheriff to let him into the jail and leave him alone with his client. Tom had been allowed to remain in the lighter apartment since there was no fear of his escape on this day, when all the town was agog about the murder, and people were continually coming to peer into the jail to get a glimpse of the monster who in the darkness had shot down one that had helped him out of a gambling scrape.
Lincoln sat down on the only stool there was in the room, while Tom sat on a bench.
"Now, Tom," said the lawyer, fixing his penetrating gaze on the young man's face, "you want to remember that I'm your friend and your counsel. However proper it may be to keep your own secret in such a situation as you are, you must tell me the whole truth, or else I cannot do you any good. How did you come to shoot Lockwood?"
"I didn't shoot Lockwood," said Tom brusquely; "and if you don't believe that it's no use to go on."
"Well, say I believe it then, and let's proceed. Tell me all that happened between you and that young man."
Tom began where this story begins and told all about turning the Bible at Albaugh's; about the gambling in Wooden & Snyder's store and how he was led into it; about his visit to Hubbard Township to get money to pay Lockwood, and Rachel's revelation of Lockwood's treachery in telling Ike. Then he told of his anger and his threatening, his uncle's break with him, and his talk with Barbara the evening before the murder; and finally he gave a circumstantial account of all that happened to him on the camp-ground, and of his flight and arrest.
"But," said Lincoln, who had looked closely and sometimes incredulously at Tom's face while he spoke, "why did you take a pistol with you to the camp-meeting?"
"I did not. I hadn't had a pistol in my hands for a week before the shooting."
"But Plunkett says there's a man ready to swear that he saw you do the shooting. They've got a pistol out of one of your drawers, and this witness will swear that you used just such an old-fashioned weapon as that."
"Good Lord, Abe! who would tell such an infernal lie on a fellow in my fix? That makes my situation bad." And Tom got up and walked the stone-paved floor in excitement. "But the bullet will show that I didn't do it. Get hold of the bullet, and if it fits the bore of that old-fashioned pistol I won't ask you to defend me."
"But there wasn't any bullet." Lincoln was now watching Tom's countenance with the closest scrutiny.
"No bullet! How in creation did they kill him, then?"
"Can't you think?" He was still studying Tom's face.
"I don't know any way of killing a fellow with a pistol that's got no bullet unless you beat his brains out with the butt of it, and I thought they said George was shot."
"So he was. But, Tom, I've made up my mind that you're innocent. It's going to be dreadful hard to prove it."
"But how was he killed?" demanded Tom.
"With buckshot."
Tom stood and mused a minute.
"Now tell me who says I did the shooting."
"I never heard of him before. Sovine, I believe his name is."
"Dave Sovine? W'y, he's the son of old Bill Sovine; he's the boy that ran off four years ago, don't you remember? He's the black-leg that won all my money. What does he want to get me hanged for? I paid him all I owed him."
Lincoln hardly appeared to hear what Tom was saying; he sat now with his eyes fixed on the grating, lost in thought.
"Tom," he said at length, "who was that strapping big knock-down fellow that used to be about your place—hunter, fisherman, fist-fighter, and all that?"
"Do you mean Bob McCord?"
"That must be the man. Big Bob, they called him. He's friendly to you, isn't he?"
"Oh, yes!"
"Well, you have Big Bob come to see me next Tuesday at the tavern, as I go back. I'll be there to dinner. And if you are called to the inquest, you have only to tell the truth. We won't make any fight before the coroner; you'll be bound over anyhow, and it's not best to show our hand too soon."
With that he took his leave. When he got out of the prison he found Mrs. Grayson and Barbara waiting to see him.
"Well, Aunt Marthy," he said, "it don't seem to me that your boy killed that fellow. It's going to be hard to clear him, but he didn't do it. I'll do my best. You must get all Tom's relations to come to the trial. And have Big Bob McCord come to see me next Tuesday."
The influence of Tom's uncle, judiciously directed by Hiram Mason, secured for the accused permission to remain in the light room of the prison in the day-time with manacles on, and to sleep in the dungeon at night without manacles. And the influence of Janet secured from Tom's aunt the loan of the clean though ancient and well-worn bedding and bed-linen that had been afforded him during his stay in his uncle's house. This was set up in the dark room of the jail in place of the bed that had been a resting-place for villains almost ever since the town was founded.
Understanding that Tom was to be taken to the coroner's inquest that afternoon, Hiram tried to persuade the sheriff to take him to Perrysburg jail at night for safety; for he had no knowledge of Bob McCord's plan for sending the mob there. But Plunkett refused this. He knew that such a change might offend Broad Run in case it should take a notion to enforce law in its own way, and Broad Run was an important factor in an election for county officers. Plunkett felt himself to be a representative sheriff. The voters of Broad Run and others of their kind had given him his majority, and he was in his place to do their will. Elevation to office had not spoiled him; he recognized in himself a humble servant of the people, whose duty it was to enforce the law whenever it did not conflict with the wishes of any considerable number of his "constituents." To his mind it did not appear to be of much consequence that a man who deserved hanging should receive his merited punishment at the hands of a mob, instead of suffering death according to the forms of law, after a few weeks or months of delay. But he was too cautious to reveal to Mason the true state of his mind; he only urged that the removal of Tom to Perrysburg would be an act of timidity that might promote the formation of a mob while it would not put Tom out of their reach; and this Mason could not deny.
The murder of George Lockwood furnished a powerful counter-excitement, which quite broke the continuity of religious feeling, and lacked little of completely breaking up the camp-meeting. Hundreds of men and women thronged about the place of the shooting and discussed all the probable and possible details of the affair, of which several versions were already current. The coroner ordered the body removed to a large barn in the neighborhood; whereupon the people rushed thither to get a sight of the dead man, for there is no source of excitement so highly prized by the vulgar as the ghastly. At 3 in the afternoon the barn was crowded. The people jostled one another closely upon the wide threshing-floor, and the wheat-mow alongside contained, among others, at least twenty women whose appetite for the horrible had led them to elbow their way early to this commanding situation. The hay-mow at the other end of the floor was full of men and boys, and the high girders were occupied by curious spectators, perched like rows of chimney-swifts at the time of autumnal flitting. More adventurous youth had managed to climb even into the dizzy collar-beams under the comb of the barn, to the dismay of the mason-swallows whose young were sheltered in adobe houses attached to the rafters. There were heads, and pendant legs, and foreshortened arms enough in the upper part of the barn to suggest a ceiling-fresco of the Last Judgment by an old Italian master. Other curious people had crowded into the horse stables below the wheat-mow, and were peering over the manger into the threshing-floor and intermingling their heads with those of the beasts of the stall, much as the aforementioned old Italian painters mix up brute and human faces in their Nativity pieces. The crowd upon the floor itself stretched out of the wide-open double doors on each hand, beyond which there was a surging mass of people blindly gravitating toward the center of excitement, though all the proceedings were invisible and inaudible to them.
On two boards supported by kegs and boxes lay the lifeless body of Lockwood. The pitiful sight of the pallid face and the eyes sunken in their sockets exasperated the spectators. Between the body and the hay-mow the coroner took his place on the only chair in the barn; at the opposite side of the corpse the jury was seated on improvised benches. Markham, the sheriff's deputy, assisted by a constable, kept back the press, whose centripetal force threatened at every movement to overwhelm the innocent jurymen.
As a matter of course, the first witness sworn was a doctor. Coroners begin at the beginning by first proving that the deceased is duly dead, and so within their jurisdiction; and by finding out by just what means the knife, rope, poison, or pistol ball severed the thread of existence. The human passion for completeness is as much prone to show itself in law proceedings as in art performances; coroners' inquests like to go down to the physiological principles that underlie the great fact of practical importance, and to inquire what was the name and function of the particular artery the severance of which put an end to consciousness in a set of ganglia which, with their complicated adjuncts, constitute what we call a man. It was in this case settled very promptly that the unfortunate deceased came to his death by a charge of buckshot. I shall not entertain the reader with the anatomical particulars, although these proved to be of the most pungent interest to the auditory at the inquest, and were scientifically expounded in every cross-roads grocery in the county for months afterward. There are old men in Illinois who haven't got done explaining the manner of it yet. But the important thing was accomplished when the coroner and his jury were convinced that the man was not only apparently, but scientifically, and therefore legally, dead; thus a basis was laid for the subsequent proceedings.
It is one of the strong points of a coroner that he knows nothing about what is held to be competent testimony,—nothing of the strict laws of relevancy and irrelevancy. He therefore goes to work to find out the truth in any way that seems good to him, without being balked by that vast network of regulations which are sure to embarrass the best endeavors of a more learned court. Markham was sworn immediately after the doctor had finished. It was his business to identify Tom's pistol. I fancy a lawyer might have insisted that no foundation had been laid for this testimony; but to the coroner it seemed the most orderly way, immediately after proving that Lockwood had been killed, to show the weapon with which he might have been killed. Markham swore to finding this pistol in Tom's room; and the ocular proof of the existence of such a weapon, in juxtaposition with the ghastly evidence before them of Lockwood's violent death, went far to establish Tom's guilt in the minds of the people. Then other witnesses swore to Tom's presence on the camp-ground; and two young men from Moscow had heard him threaten, some weeks before, that he would shoot George Lockwood.
It was just when the evidence of these two was finished that the people on the threshold of the south door of the barn began to sway to and fro in a sort of premonitory wave-motion, for outside of the door Sheriff Plunkett, having just arrived from Moscow with Tom Grayson, was battling with the condensed crowd in an endeavor to reach the presence of the coroner.
"You can't git through, Sher'f," said one man. "This crowd's so thick you could bore a nauger into it."
But the sheriff's progress was aided by the interest of the people in Tom. They could not resist turning about to look at him, and every movement displaced some human molecules; so that Plunkett, aided by the respect shown to him as an officer, was able to push a little farther in at every budge. But the people were not content with looking at Tom.
"You've got to swing fer it, you young rascal," said one man as Tom passed.
"Coward to shoot a man in the dark!" muttered another.
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 butt 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 nobody in it but a few boys.
When Mason came to say that he was ready, Markham passed 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 bumble-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 passions 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 nobody had seen him taken down the Moscow road. Foiled in their purpose, they fell away, and the tide of passion 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.
As soon as Zeke had eaten the frugal supper of mush and milk that Mrs. Britton set out for him, he sought the dilapidated little Broad Run grocery. The building was of logs, and had a pair of deer's antlers over the door for a sign that it was in one sense a public house. The low door, with its threshold on the level of the ground, the one square, dingy little window, and the shabby stick chimney, in the chinks of which the clay plaster was cleaving, gave the place a run-down expression. In looking at the building, one got a notion that it would like to slink away if it could. Zeke found nobody in but the proprietor, a boozy-headed looking man, with his hands usually in his trousers' pockets, and his swollen eye-lids never wide open. The stock of groceries was small; two barrels of corn-whisky and one of molasses were the dominant elements; a quart cup and some glasses stood on a dirty unpainted poplar counter, beside a pair of scales. The whole interior had a harmonious air of sloth, stupidity, and malpropriety; and its compound odors were as characteristic as indescribable. Zeke waited about awhile, wondering that no one should have come to the rendezvous.
"Where's Jake Hogan?" he enquired of the "grocery-keeper."
"I dunno."
Zeke had anticipated this answer. The man never did know anything but the price of his liquors. It was the safest way for one who kept such a resort and heard so many confidences, and it was a way of answering questions that required the least exertion.
"But I wuz to meet him here."
"Oh, you wuz!" Then, after awhile, he asked, "Been over to his house?"
"No."
The grocery-keeper did not say any more, but Zeke conjectured that the meeting had adjourned to Jake Hogan's cabin for greater privacy. Zeke made his way over there with much stumbling, for the night was rather a dark one in the woods. The cabin which was now owned and occupied by Hogan was, like most of the Broad Run dwellings, built of round logs with the bark on; that is to say, the bark had been left on when the house was built, but years of rain and sun had peeled off about half of it, and left the house spotted and ragged. There was but one room, and one might enter this without ceremony, for the door stood wide open, though not on account of hospitality. This door was made of heavy puncheons and had originally hung on wooden hinges, but the uppermost hinge had come off six months before, and though Jake had "'lowed to fix it" nearly every day since, it had not been repaired, for Hogan was a public-spirited citizen, deeply interested in politics, and in reformatory movements like the present one for hanging Tom Grayson; and it was not to be expected that such a man could, in the nature of things, spare time to put a paltry hinge on a door, when grave questions were always likely to be mooted at the grocery. So every morning the clumsy door was lifted aside; at bed-time it was with difficulty partly hoisted and partly shoved back into its place. If the night was very warm, the ceremony of closing the door was omitted. Locks were not necessary in a neighborhood like Broad Run, where honesty was hardly a virtue, there being so little temptation to theft. Jake's house contained a rude home-made bedstead of poles, and two or three stools of the householder's own manufacture. Hogan "'lowed" some day to make one or two more stools and a table. At present, he and his wife patiently ate from skillet and pot, until the table should be made. It was something to have conceived the notion of a table, and with that Jake rested. There was a large fire-place built of sticks and clay; it had stones for andirons and was further furnished with a pot, not to mention a skillet, which stood on two legs and a stone and had lost its handle. Jake always 'lowed he'd get a new skillet; but he postponed it until he should have more money than was absolutely needful to buy indispensable clothes and whisky with. There was also a hoe, on which Mrs. Jake baked cold water hoe-cakes when she had company to supper. For shovel, a rived clapboard had been whittled into a handle at one end. Some previous owner had been rich enough and extravagant enough to have the four-light window glazed, but all the panes were now broken. An old hat, too shabby even for Jake to wear, filled the place of one of the squares of glass; the rest of the sash was left open for light and ventilation.
Secure as Jake and his party felt from legal interference, they had chosen to retire to this cabin instead of remaining at the grocery. This secrecy was rather an involuntary tribute of respect for the law than an act of caution. Mrs. Hogan, whose household duties were of the lightest, had been sent away, and into Jake's cabin a party of twenty had crowded, so far as was possible for them to get in. Some stood outside of the door, and Zeke had to find a place at the broken window in order to hear what was going on. This was a muster of the leaders and the center of the party; one of the "boys" had been sent to the camp-ground to seek recruits who were not to be trusted in this council of war. The recruits were notified to assemble at the cross-roads "'twix midnight un moon-up."
The first that Zeke made out was that Jake was relieving his mind in a little speech:
"D' yeh know they've gone un set up the k-yards onto us, boys? Soon's Uncle Lazar h-yer tole me't Bob McCord ud come over h-yer a-huntin', I know'd he wuz arter sumpin' ur nother besides b'ars. Bob's purty tol'able cute, but he a'n't the on'y cute feller in the worl'. Me'n' Uncle Lazar jes laid fer 'im. Ketch Jake Hogan asleep, won' cheh! Uncle Lazar, thar, when he seen Bob a-comin' down the run weth a b'ar on 'is shoulder, he jes' soaks 'im weth whisky, un then 'im un S'manthy worms it out 'v 'm what he wuz a-loafin' over yer fer un not at the eenques'. He would n' noways tell Uncle Lazar, but he's kind-uh fond uv S'manthy, un she's smart, S'manthy is. She jes' kind-uh saf-sawdered 'im un coaxed 'im up, tell he could n' keep it in no longer, bein' a leetle meller, un he tole 'er 't 'e wuz a-spying aroun' so's to let the shurruff know 'f we'd got wind uv 'is plans, un 't 'e expected to have the larf on Jake to-morry. But Uncle Lazar 'n' me 've got that fixed up, un Bob wuzn't more'n out-uh sight afore Uncle Lazar wuz a trit-trottin' 'n 'is way, yeh know, fer Jake Hogan's. Bob's a-comin' over to-morry to fetch back Uncle Lazar's mar' un have the larf onto us. But he took jes' one too many pulls at Lazar's jug." Here Jake paused to vent a laugh of self-complacency and exultation.
"Thunder 'n' light'in', Jake," called out one of the party who stood outside of the door, beyond the light of the flickering blaze on the hearth, "what did Bob tell S'manthy? Why don' choo tell us, anyways? You're a long time a-gittin' to the p'int. The business afore this yer meetin' is to hang Tom Grayson to a short meter toon. Now you tell me, what's Uncle Lazar's whisky-jug got to do weth that? What's the needcessity uv so much jaw?"
"Don' choo fret the cattle now," said Jake. "You want to know what Bob tole S'manthy? W'y ut the shurruff was a-sendin' Tom Grayson f'om the eenques' over to Perrysburg jail to git him out-uh your way. I 'low that's got sumpin' to do weth the business afore the meetin' hain't it?"
"Maybe he wuz a-foolin' S'manthy," said the interlocutor, in a voice a little subdued.
"Maybe he wuzn't," retorted Jake.
"He wuz drunk ez a fool," piped up Uncle Lazar in a quivering treble. "He mus' 'a' tuck 'most a quart out-uh my jug, un he could n' stan' straight w'en 'e went away. He tuck keer never to say Perrysburg to me, but he talked about shootin' you-all down at Moscow, jes zif shootin'-irons wuz a-goin' to skeer sech a devilish passel uv fellers ez you-all. I could n' git nuthin' more out 'v 'm. But I seed all the time 't they wuz sumpin' kinday kep' in, like. He on'y let on to S'manthy arter I'd gone outay doors, un when he wuz thes chock full un one over. Un he tied S'manthy up so orful tight about it, she kinday hated to tell me, un I had to thes tell 'er 't she mus'."
"Jes y'all look at the case," said Jake, with a clumsy oratorical gesture. "Tom's uncle's one uv them ar rich men what always gets the'r own way, somehow ur nuther. That's what we're up fer. Ef we don't settle this yer business by a short cut acrost the woods, they'll be a pack uv lawyers a-provin' that black's white, un that killin' hain't no murder noways, un Tom'll git off 'cause he's got kin what kin pay fer the law, un buy up the jury liker'n not. A pore man don' stan' no kind uv a chance in this yer dodrotted country. Down in North Kerliny, whar I come from, 't wuz different. Now I say sass fer the goose is—"
"Aw, well, what's sass got to do weth the question, Jake? We're all in favor uv the pore man, cause that's us," said his opponent, from outside the door.
"Well," retorted Jake, "what would ole Tom do for young Tom 't this time? Ainh? Jes you screw up yer thinkin' machine, ef you've got ary one, un tell me that. Wouldn' he jes nat'rally get the shurruff to put out to Perrysburg weth 'im, un then git a change uv venoo, un then buy up a jury un a passel uv dodrotted lawyers un git 'im off; ur else hire some feller to break open the jail un sen' the young scamp to t' other side of the Mississip'? It stan's to nater 't Tom Grayson's in Perrysburg jail to-night."
"Un it stan's to nater," said one of the company, "that Broad Run's a-goin' to make a frien'ly visit to the nex' county to-night. Un it stan's to nater we're goin' to settle Hank Plunkett's hash at the next 'lection fer shurruff."
"Now yer a-talkin' sense," cried another of the crowd.
As soon as it was clear that the meeting was in favor of going to Perrysburg, the gathering began to break up, some of the men feeling by this time a strong gravitation towards the grocery. Zeke went to Jake Hogan and explained that he "mus' be a-goin'."
"You know," he added, "I've ruther got to steal my hoss. The ole man Britton mout lemme have one ef the ole woman'd let him. But I know she jest nat'rally won't. So I'd better go back un git to bed, then when the folks is asleep I'll crawl out."
Two things lay heavy on Zeke Tucker's mind as he hastened toward Britton's. For the life of him he could not tell whether Perrysburg was the destination to which Bob wished to send Jake, or whether Jake might not be right in supposing that Bob had incautiously betrayed his own secret. But this was Bob's affair; what troubled him most was to devise a way by which he could get possession of a piece of candle. Mrs. Britton would not allow a hired man to have a light. "Any man that could n' feel 'is way into bed mus' be simple," she said.
Zeke found the old people out of bed later than usual. Mrs. Britton had been churning, and the butter "took a contrary streak," as she expressed it, and refused to come until she and the old man had churned alternately for two hours. She was working the butter when Zeke came in and sat down. Watching his chance, he managed to snatch a tiny bit of candle-end that had been carefully laid up on the mantel-piece. But when Mrs. Britton's lighted candle flickered in its socket, she went to get the piece that was already in Zeke's pocket.
"I declare to goodness," she said, as she fumbled among the bits of string and other trumpery on the shelf, "where's that piece of candle gone to? Do you know, Cyrus?"