32. CHAPTER XXXII.
AFTER THE BATTLE.
NOTHING can be more demoralizing in the
long run than lynch law. And yet lynch law
often originates in a burst of generous indignation
which is not willing to suffer a bold oppressor to
escape by means of corrupt and cowardly courts.
It is oftener born of fear. Both motives powerfully agitated
the people of the region round about Clifty as night drew on
after Ralph's acquittal. They were justly indignant that Ralph
had been made the victim of such a conspiracy, and they were
frightened at the unseen danger to the community from such a
band as that of Small's. It was certain that they did not know
the full extent of the danger as yet. And what Small might do
with a jury, or what Pete Jones might do with a sheriff, was a
question. I must not detain the reader to tell how the mob
rose. Nobody knows how such things come about. Their origin
is as inexplicable as that of an earthquake. But, at any rate,
a rope was twice put round Small's neck during that night, and
both times Small was saved only by the nerve and address of
Ralph, who had learned how unjust mob law may be. As for
Small, he neither trembled when they were ready to hang him,
nor looked relieved when he was saved, nor showed the slightest
flush of penitence or gratitude. He bore himself in a quiet,
gentlemanly way throughout, like the admirable villain that
he was.
He waived a preliminary examination the next day; his father
went his bail, and he forfeited his bail and disappeared from the
county and from the horizon of my story. Two reports concerning
Small have been in circulation—one that he was running
a faro-bank in San Francisco, the other that he was curing
consumption by inhalation and electricity here in New York.
If this latter were true, it would leave it an open question
whether Ralph did well to save him from the gallows. Pete
Jones and Bill, as usually happens to the rougher villains, went
to prison, and when their terms had expired moved to Pike
County, Missouri.
But it is about Hannah that you want to hear, and that I
want to tell. She went straight from the court-room to Flat
Creek, climbed to her chamber, packed all her earthly goods,
consisting chiefly of a few family relics, in a handkerchief,
and turned her back on the house of Means forever. At the gate
she met the old woman, who shook her fist in the girl's face and
gave her a parting benediction in the words: “You mis'able,
ongrateful critter you, go 'long! I'm glad to be shed of you!”
At the barn she met Bud, and he told her good-by with a little
huskiness in his voice, while a tear glistened in her eye. Bud had
been a friend in need, and such a friend one does not leave
without a pang.
“Where are you going? Can I—”
“No, no!” And with that she hastened on, afraid that Bud
would offer to hitch up the roan colt. And she did not want to
add to his domestic unhappiness by compromising him in that
way
It was dusk and raining when she left. The hours were
long, the road was lonely, and after the revelations of that day
it did not seem wholly safe. But from the moment that she
found herself free, her heart had been ready to break with an
impatient home-sickness. What though there might be robbers
in the woods? What though there were ten rough miles to
travel? What though the rain was in her face? What though
she had not tasted food since the morning of that exciting day?
Flat Creek and bondage were behind; freedom, mother, Shocky,
and home were before her, and her feet grew lighter with the
thought. And if she needed any other joy, it was to know
that the master was clear. And he would come! And so she
traversed the weary distance, and so she inquired and found
the house, the beautiful, homely old house of beautiful, homely
old Nancy Sawyer, and knocked, and was admitted, and fell down,
faint and weary, at her blind mother's feet, and laid her tired head
in her mother's lap and wept, and wept like a child, and said,
“O mother! I'm free, I'm free!” while the mother's tears
baptized her face, and the mother's trembling fingers combed out
her tresses. And Shocky stood by her and cried: “I knowed
God wouldn't forget you, Hanner!”
Hannah was ready now to do anything by which she could
support her mother and Shocky. She was strong, and inured
to toil. She was willing and cheerful, and she would gladly
have gone to service if by that means she could have
supported the family. And, for that matter, her mother was
already nearly able to support herself by her knitting. But
Hannah had been carefully educated when young, and at that
moment the old public schools were being organized into a
graded school, and the good minister, who shall be nameless,
because he is, perhaps, still living in Indiana, and who in Methodist
parlance was called “the preacher-in-charge of Lewisburg
Station”—this good minister and Miss Nancy Sawyer got Hannah
a place as teacher of a primary department. And then a little
house with four rooms was rented, and a little, a very little furniture
was put into it, and the old, sweet home was established
again. The father was gone, never to come back again. But
the rest were here. And somehow Hannah kept waiting for
somebody else to come.
