"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.
XXV
LIKE A WOLF ON THE FOLD
Barbara, at her uncle's house, had not been able to go to bed. Tom's fate, she knew, would be decided the next day, and whatever of hope there might be for him was hidden in the mind of his lawyer. Mrs. Grayson had involuntarily fallen into a slumber, and the anxious Barbara sat by her in the darkness, wishing for the coming of the day, whose coming was nevertheless dreadful to her. The sound of a wagon rattling in another street startled her; she went to the window and strained her eyes against the darkness outside of the 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 fust as last, 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 towards Hardscrabble, 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? What has happened?" 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.
"I should be glad to tell your Honor; but the fact is, I can't manage to find out myself."
Then one of the other lawyers spoke up. "Lincoln, from what you say, I suppose the first mob took Grayson to save him from the second. But I don't see how the Old Boy you raised forty men on your side. I wouldn't have believed that the poor devil had so many friends."
"I? I didn't raise any men. I was sound asleep, and didn't know a word about it until the row was all over."
After breakfast there was much discussion of the case among the lawyers standing in a group in the bar-room. What would Lincoln do? Why had he not moved for a change of venue? Why had he subpœnaed no witnesses? Would he plead necessary self-defense, or would Tom plead guilty and throw himself on the mercy of the governor?
The sheriff was very active in the latter part of the night in telling his story and in making a display of zeal. It was he who had taken time by the forelock in telling the judge all about the events of the night; how his door had been beaten in by a great mob; how he had been rudely knocked down and choked until he was almost insensible; and how pistols had been cocked and placed against his head. Then he told of the coming of the second mob. He did not know which way Tom had been taken, or whether he had been hanged or not, but he had sent the deputy to make inquiries.
In making an examination of the prison after daylight, Sheriff Plunkett found the keys of the jail inside of the hall-way, as though they had been thrown in at the broken-down window. When he went to force the court-house door, the key belonging to it was found lying on the doorstep; and when on opening the door he saw Tom with his manacles on, awaiting him, his surprise was complete.
"I thought you'd been hung," he said.
"Not yet," said Tom, grimly.
"Say, where did that mob come from that got you out?"
"You can't question me," said Tom. "I'm not a witness to-day; I'm a prisoner."
Many of the excited people, moved by the restive longings of a vague curiosity, had followed the sheriff into the court-room, and the news of Tom's presence there soon spread throughout the village. There were already all sorts of contradictory and exciting rumors in the streets about the events of the preceding night; women let their breakfast coffee boil over while they discussed the affair across back fences; men almost forgot to eat anything in their eagerness for news; country people were flocking in by all the roads and listening to all sorts of contradictory tales told by the villagers. When it became known that Tom was alive and awaiting his trial there was a general rush to secure seats, and the court-room was filled long before the bell in its belfry had announced the hour for the trial to begin.