"Sit down there, mother," gasped Barbara. "Mely, you stay by mother."

Then Barbara's slight form pushed through the crowd, until her progress was arrested by a dense knot of eager inquirers that encompa.s.sed the man who had brought the news. It was quite impossible to get within twenty feet of him, or to hear anything he was saying; but bits of intelligence percolated through the layers of humanity that enveloped him. Barbara could only wait and listen. At last a man a little nearer the radiating center said in reply to the query of one who stood next to her:

"It's George Lockwood, that clerks for Wooden & Snyder down 't Moscow, that is killed, but I can't find out who 't wuz done it."

Barbara's heart stood still within her for a moment. Then dreading to hear more, she pushed out of the ever-increasing crowd and reached her mother.

"Come, mother; we must get home quick."

"What's the matter, Barb'ry? Who's killed?" asked Mely McCord.

"I don't know anything, only we _must_ get home. Quick, mother!" she was impelled by instinct to save her mother as long as possible from the shock she felt impending. But it was of no use.

"What's the matter, Sam; can you make out?" cried a man near her to one just emerging from the crowd about the messenger.

"W'y, they say as Tom Grayson's shot an' killed a feller from Moscow, an' Tom's made off, an' can't be found. They's talk of lynchin' him."

Mrs. Grayson's lips moved; she tried to speak, but in vain; the sudden blow had blanched her face and paralyzed her speech. It was pitiable to see her ineffectual effort to regain control of herself. At length she sank down on a shuck-bottom chair by the door of the tent.

"Yer's some smellin'-salts," said a woman standing by, and she thrust forward her leathery hand holding an uncorked bottle of ammonia.

"He didn't do it," murmured Mrs. Grayson, when she had revived a little.

"Our Tommy wouldn't do sech a thing. Go up there,"--and she pointed to the pulpit,--"you go up there, Barb'ry, an' tell the folks 't our Tommy never done it."

"Come, mother; let's go home," said Barbara faintly, for all her energy had gone now.

"I'll go with you," said Mely.

But Mrs. Grayson did not wish to go; she was intent on staying in order to tell the folks that Tommy "never, never done sech a thing."

She yielded at length to the gentle compulsion of Barbara and Mely and the neighbors who gathered about, and got into the wagon. Mely, who knew every inch of the road, took the reins, and drove slowly toward the Grayson house, picking a way among the stumps, roots, and holes of the new road.

XI

FRIENDS IN THE NIGHT

The ride seemed to Barbara almost interminable. If she could have left her half-distracted mother she would have got out of the wagon and run through the fields, in hope of finding Tom and knowing from him the whole truth, and making up her mind what was to be done. When at length the wagon reached the gate in front of the Grayson house, Bob McCord was in waiting. He had heard that a bear had been seen on Broad Run, and had left the camp-meeting early, intent on a departure before daylight in pursuit of that "varmint." He had known nothing of the shooting, but he told Barbara that, when he came near the Grayson house, he had seen Tom run across the road and into the house,--and that Tom came out again almost at once, and reached the gate in time to meet the sheriff and give himself up. The sheriff had dismounted one of the men with him, and putting Tom in the saddle they had gone toward Moscow on a gallop. Bob wasn't near enough to hear what Tom had said when the sheriff took him; but knowing that something must be wrong, he had waited for the return of the wagon.

It was some relief to the tension of Barbara's feelings to know that Tom was now in the hands of the lawful authorities and well on his way to Moscow, where he would be out of the reach of the angry crowd that was surging to and fro around the camp-meeting.

But there followed the long night of uncertainty. The mother sat moaning in her chair, only rousing herself enough now and then to a.s.sure some newly arrived neighbor that "poor Tom never done it." Barbara confided only to Mely McCord the very faint hope she entertained that Tom was not guilty. She couldn't believe that he would break his solemn promise, made that very evening. But in her secret heart she could not get over the fact that George Lockwood was lying in the woods stark and dead, and no one was so likely to have killed him as her impetuous brother.

About 1 o'clock, the dreadful monotony of the night was dreadfully broken by the arrival of the deputy-sheriff. He spoke in an unsympathetic, official voice, but in a manner externally respectful. He must search Tom's room; and so, taking a candle, he went to the room alone, and soon came back bringing an old-fashioned single-barrel, flint-lock pistol, of the kind in use in the early part of the century.

It had belonged to Tom's father, and the officer had found it in one of the drawers in the room. Barbara sat down and shut her eyes as the deputy pa.s.sed through the sitting-room with the weapon, but Mrs. Grayson called the officer to her.

"I say, Mister--I don't know your name. Let me speak to you."

"Yes, ma'am," said the man, "My name's Markham"; and he came and stood near her.

"Air you the son of Lijy Markham?" Mrs. Grayson always identified people by recalling their filiation, and she could not resist this genealogical tendency in her mind even in the hour of sorest trial.

"Yes," said the officer.

"Well, now, what I want to say is that Tommy didn't kill that man. I'm his mother, an' I had ought to know, an' I tell yeh so. You hadn't ought to 'a' took 'im up fer what he didn't do."

Markham was puzzled to know what to reply, but he answered presently:

"Well, the court'll find out about it, you know, Mrs. Grayson." The man's official stiffness was a little softened by the tones of her heart-broken voice.

Barbara never could tell how she got through the hours from half-past 10 to 3 o'clock. Neighbors were coming and going--some from a desire to be helpful, others from curiosity, but Mely remained with them. Bob McCord was too faithful to leave the Graysons when he might be needed but it was impossible for him to remain awake from mere sympathy. When Markham was gone, he lay down on the end of the porch farthest from the door, and slept the sleep of the man of the Bronze Age. His fidelity was like that of a great dog--he gave himself no anxiety, but he was ready when wanted.

At 3 o'clock Barbara said to Mely: "I can't stand it a minute longer; I can't wait for daybreak. Wake up your father and ask him to hitch up Blaze. I'm going to see Tom as quick as I can get there. I ought to have started before."

"I'm a-goin' too," said Mrs. Grayson.

"No, mother; you stay. It's too much for you."

"Me, Barb'ry?" The mother's lip quivered, and she spoke in a tremulous voice, like that of a pleading child. "Me stay 't home an' my Tommy--my boy--in jail! No, Barb'ry; you won't make me stay 't home. I'm goin' t'

Moscow, ef it kills me. I must. I'm his mother, Barb'ry. He's the on'y boy 't 's left. All the rest is dead an' gone. An' him in jail!"

"Pap! pap! you wake up!" Mely was calling to her father lying there asleep, and Barbara came and stood in the door, fain to hasten Bob McCord's slow resurrection from the deeps of unconsciousness and at the same time to escape from the sight of her mother's despair.

As Bob got up and comprehended the urgent request that the horse be harnessed immediately, Barbara's attention was drawn to a man coming swiftly down the road in the moonlight. The figure was familiar. Barbara felt sure she recognized the new-comer; and when, instead of stopping to fumble for the gate-bolt, he rested his hands on the fence alongside and sprang over, she knew that it was Hiram Mason, whom she had not seen since the evening, nearly two weeks before, when they had peeled apples together. It would be hard to say whether pleasure or pain predominated in her mind when she recognized him.

By the time Mason got over the fence Bob McCord had gone to the stable, and Mely had reentered the house. Barbara went forward and met Hiram on the steps to the porch.

"Poor, dear Barbara!" were his words as he took her hand. At other times her pride had been nettled by his pity, but her desolate soul had not fort.i.tude enough left to refuse the solace of his tender words.

"I came the very moment I heard," he said. "I was staying away down at Albaugh's, and Ike was the only one of them on the camp-ground. He was so excited, and so anxious to see and hear, that he didn't get home till 2 o'clock. And only think I was sleeping quietly and you in such trouble!"

"You mustn't come in," said Barbara. "We're a disgraced family, and you mustn't come in here any more."

"What notions!" answered Hiram. "I'm here to stay. Let me ask your mother." He took hold of her arms and put her aside very gently and pushed on into the house, where Mely was pinning on Mrs. Grayson's wide cape preparatory to her ride to Moscow.

"Mrs. Grayson--" said he.

"W'y, ef 't ain't the master!" she interrupted in a trembling voice.

"Mr. Mason, Tommy never killed that man, an' he hadn't ought to 'a' been took up."

"Mrs. Grayson, won't you let me stay with you a few days, now you're in trouble, and help you through?"

The old lady looked at him for a moment before she was able to reply.

"It ain't fer a schoolmaster an' a preacher's son to come here, now folks'll be a-sayin' 't we're--'t we're--murderers." This last word, uttered with tremulous hesitation, broke down her self-control, and Mrs.