THE MOB
Anne Oglesby left the jail shortly after the time when church services
were ending. As she hurried by Aurora Lane's house in Mulberry Street
she saw a light shining from the windows, but she did not enter--she
could not have spoken to anyone now.
She evaded any meeting with her guardian after she had made her way back
home. Judge Henderson had not known of her absence and was not aware of
her return. Anne thus by a certain period of time missed seeing what Dan
Cowles presently saw.
It was noticeable that Sabbath day that more than the usual number of
farmers' wagons remained in town, quite past the time when the country
church members usually started back for their homes. The farmers seemed
to be in no hurry, even although they had seen a double church service.
There was something restless, something vague, disturbing, over the
town. A number of townsmen also seemed impelled to walk back toward the
public square. Some strange indefinite summons drew them thither. Little
knots of men stood here and there. Groups of women gathered at this or
that gallery front.
No one knows the point where in vague public thought a general
resolution actually begins. The ripple in the pool spreads widely when a
stone is cast. What chance word, or what deliberate resolve, may have
started the slowly growing resolution of Spring Valley may not be known;
but now a sort of stealthy silence fell over the village as groups
gathered here and there, speaking cautiously, in low tones.
A knot of men stood near the corner of the square looking down the
street to the light which shone red from the shaded window of Aurora
Lane.
"I know what was done right in this here town thirty year ago," said one
high pitched voice. "It was old Eph Adamson's father that led them, too.
Them was days when----"
"Why ain't Eph in town today?" asked another voice. "I seen considerable
of his neighbors around in town today."
"He was, a while back," said someone.
"That must have been about a hour ago," said some other, looking about
furtively at the faces of his neighbors.
"Let's take a stroll over towards the open lots near the jail,"
suggested someone else.
So, following the first to start with definite purpose, little
straggling groups passed on beyond the corner of the square, beyond the
jail itself, to a sort of open space not yet encroached upon by public
or private buildings.
There was no shouting, no loud talking. The light was dim. The crowd
itself moved vaguely, milling about, like cattle restive and ready to
stampede, but not yet determined on their course.
"God! Did you hear that music this afternoon--they're done a-buryin'
poor old Joel Tarbush by now, but I can hear it yet, seems to me! Now,
what had poor old Joel ever done--all his life--to deserve bein'
murdered like a dog? It makes my blood sort of rise up to think of that.
Now, them that done that--them that was back of that----"
His friend, accosted, nodded grimly, his mouth was shut tight and turned
down deep at the corners.
There did not lack one or two willing at least to talk further. One was
a young man, rather well dressed, apparently fresh from church. He spoke
to any who would listen.
"What I mean to say, men, is this," said he, "we've got to do something
to clean up this town. It's the _people_ that's behind the law anyhow.
Am I right?"
"He talks like a lawyer--what he says is pretty true," said one farmer
to another.
"That was a strong sermon our minister preached tonight," said yet
another. "He said we'd have to stamp out crime and make a warnin'. The
preacher e'en--a'most pointed out what we ought to do."
"... We'd ought to make a clean sweep of this whole family," said the
same young man, more boldly now. "They're a bad lot--both her son and
her."
"... We could break into the jail easy," said someone, after a time.
"Cowles couldn't keep us from it. Maybe he wouldn't want to."
"... The trouble is," resumed the voice of the young man who had earlier
spoken, "it's hard to make a law case stick. We've seen how that worked
out in the trial yesterday--he came clear--they dropped the case, and
nothing was done. Old Eph Adamson had to take all the medicine. But we
ought to take our place as a law-abiding community--I've always said
that."
"And God-fearin'," said a devout voice.
"Yes, a God-fearing community! It's been twenty years now that that
woman has flaunted her vice in the face of this community."
"Ain't a man in this town that don't know about her--it's just sort o'
quieted down, that's all," said a gray-bearded, peak-chinned man grimly;
which was more or less true, as more than one man present knew, himself
not guiltless enough of heart at least to cast the first stone at Aurora
Lane.
"In the old times," grinned one stoutish man, chewing tobacco and
speaking to a neighbor who held a hand cupped at his ear, "the folks
wouldn't of stood it. They'd just 'a' had a little feather party. They
rid such people out of town on a rail them days--that's what they done.
And they didn't never come back after that--never in the world. As for a
murderer--they made a eend of him!"
"And so could we make a eend of it all right now, this very night, if we
had a little sand," said another voice.
For a time all these speakers fell silent, seeking resolve, waiting for
an order, a command. But as they became silent they grew more uneasy.
They broke ground, shifted, milled about, still like cattle. Then head
was laid to head, beard wagged to beard again.
And then, all at once, it broke!
"_Come on, boys!_" cried a loud voice at last--not that of the young man
who first had spoken--not that of any of these others speakers who had
hesitated, lacking courage of definite sort. "_Come on! Who's with me?_"
The town of Spring Valley never mentioned the name of this speaker. The
report got out in a general way that he was a farmer who lived a few
miles out in the country. Indeed, sympathy for Ephraim Adamson's bad
fortune in this case was no doubt largely at the bottom of this affair
tonight--along with these other things; sympathy for Tarbush; the
sermons of the preachers; the emotional spell of the dirge music, still
lingering on these crude souls. No mob reasons. It was plain that most
of the men, though not all, were farmers. But now they all fell in
behind the leader as he started, a motley procession. Some folded
handkerchiefs and tied them about their faces. Yet others reversed their
coats, wearing them with the linings outside. Others pulled their hats
down over their eyes.
Their feet, although not keeping time, none the less caught a ragged
unison, in a sound which could have been heard at a considerable
distance. Dan Cowles heard it now, and came to the door of the county
jail. As he saw the crowd, he drew a long breath.
"They're coming here!" said he to himself at length. "I reckon they'll
try to get him. I'll hold him anyways, and they know that." Quickly he
darted back into the jail.
The procession debouched at the edge of the jail yard square, halted for
a moment, then came on steadily, because someone at their head walked
steadily. Perhaps there were seventy-five or a hundred of them in all.
Most of them were neighbors, nearly every man knew who was his neighbor
here, even in the darkness. Not one of these could precisely have told
why he was here. By some process of self-persuasion, some working of
hysteria, some general acceptance of the auto-suggestion of the mob,
most had persuaded themselves that they were there to "do their duty."
It sounded well. If, indeed, they had been brought hither merely by the
excitement of it, merely under the hypnosis of it, they forgot that, or
tried to forget it, and said they were there to do their duty--their
duty to their God-fearing town.... But in the mind of each was a picture
out of the past of which we may not inquire. That night far worse than
murder might have been done.
"We want him, Dan. Bring him out!" The voice of the leader sounded dry
and hoarse, but he did not waver, for he saw the sheriff make no move of
resistance.
"You can't get him," said Dan Cowles. "You couldn't even if he was here.
But he ain't here."
"What do you mean, he ain't here? We know he is!"
"Come in and see," said Cowles, stepping back. "I just been to his cell
and he ain't there. Come in and search the whole jail."
They did come in and search the jail, piling into the corridors, opening
every door, looking into every room even of the sheriff's living
quarters, but the jail was empty! There was no prisoner there at all.
"We want Don Lane, that killed the city marshal," repeated the husky
voice of the leader once more. "Where is he?"
"I don't know," said Sheriff Cowles. "If I did, I wouldn't tell you."
And indeed he spoke only truth in both these statements.
"I know!" screamed a high voice in the middle of the man pack. "He's
maybe up at her house--'Rory Lane's. Let's go search the place--we'll
get him yet!"
It was enough. The mob, thus resisted, disappointed, began to mutter, to
talk now, in a low, hoarse half roar of united voices. They turned away
on a new trail. Some broke into shouts as they began to hurry down the
brick walk of the jail yard. They jostled and crowded in the street, as
they came into the corner of the public square. A general outcry arose
as they caught sight of the light in the window of Aurora Lane's little
home, a half block down the street, beyond the corner of the square.
Aurora heard the sound of their feet coming down the sidewalk. She heard
the noise at her gate--heard the crash as the gate was kicked off its
new-mended hinges--heard the men crowd up her little walk, heard their
feet clumping on the little gallery floor. Her heart stopped. She stood
white-faced, her hands clasped. What was it? What did they mean? Were
they going to kill her boy? Had they killed him? Were they going to tell
her that? Were they going to kill her, too?
"Come on out!" she heard someone calling to her. It seemed to her that
she must go. In some strange hypnosis, her feet began to move,
unsanctioned by her volition.... She stood at the door facing them all,
her eyes large, her face showing her distress, her query, her new
terror. On her face indeed was written now the whole story of her
despair, her failure, her terrible unhappiness. She had aged by years,
these last twenty-four hours. Now sheer terror was written there also.
The mob! The lynchers! The avengers! What had they not and more than
once done in this little savage town?... A picture rose before her
mind ... a horrible picture out of the past. Wide-eyed, she caught at the
throat of her gown, caught at the covering of her bosom--and then went
at bay, as does any despairing creature that has been pressed too hard.
She looked down at them. Those nearest to her were masked. Back of them
rose groups of shoulders, rough clad, hats pulled down.... No, she did
not know one of them; she did not recognize even a face--or was not sure
she had done so. They jostled and shifted and pushed forward.
"No! No! Go back! Go on away!" she cried, pale, her eyes starting. And
again she called aloud, piteously, on that God who seemed to have
forsaken her.
"Come on out!" cried a voice, thick and husky. "Come on out, and hurry
up about it. Bring him out--we know he's here. We want Don Lane, and
we're going to git him--or we'll git you. Damn you, look out, or we'll
git you both! Where's that boy, that killed the marshal?"
"He's not here," answered Aurora, in a voice she would not have known to
be her own. "I don't know where he is. Believe me, if he's not there in
the jail, I don't know where he is. What do you want of him? He's not
here--I give you my word he's not."
She still stood, near the door, her hands clutching at her clothing, a
mortal terror in her soul, her frail woman's body the only fence now for
her home, no longer sanctuary.
"You lie! We know he is here--he ain't in the jail. If the sher'f let
him out, he'd come here. You've got him hid. Bring him out--it's no use
trying to get him away from us. We want him, and we've come to git him."
The words of the leader got their support in the rumble of fourscore
throats.
"I'm telling you the truth," quavered poor Aurora Lane. "Men, can't you
believe me? Have I ever lied to you?"
A roar of brutish laughter greeted this. "Listen at her talk!" cried one
tall young man. "Fine, ain't it! She's been just a angel here! Oh, no,
she wouldn't lie to us about that boy--oh! no, she never has! Why, you
ain't never done nothing _but_ lie, all your life!"
They laughed again at this, and became impatient.
"This is her little old place," began the same voice. "I've never been
in it before. I bet they's been goings-on, right here, more'n once."
"That's so!" said a man whose mouth corners were drawn down hard. "And
in this here God-fearin' town o' ours, that's always wanted to be
respectable."
"Sure we did, all of us!" encored the cracking treble of the same tall,
well-dressed young man. "Whose fault if we ain't? She's his mother. This
whole business come of her bein' what she is--looser'n hell, that's all.
We stood it all for years--but this is too much--killin' the city
marshal----"
"I didn't!" cried Aurora Lane, ghastly pale. "He never did. I've tried
to live here clean for twenty years. Not one of you can raise a voice
against me--you cowards, you liars! My boy--if he were here, not any ten
of you'd dare say that! You'd not dare to touch him. Oh, you brutes--you
low-down cowards!"
"We'll show you if we don't dare!" rejoined the steady voice of the
leader. "Fetch him out now and we'll show you about that. We're goin' to
git him, first 'r last, and it's no use trying to stop it. We'll
reg'late this town now, in our own way. If that boy's out of jail, he's
either skipped or else he's here. Either way, the safest thing to do is
to come on through with him. If you don't, we'll see about _you_--and
we'll do it mighty soon. Bring him out."
"Oh, hell!" shrilled a falsetto voice, "you're wastin' time with her.
Go on in after him--she's got him hid--she's kep' him hid for twenty
years and she's keepin' him hid now--and you can gamble on it! Go on in
and git him!"
There came a shuffling of feet on the walk, on the gallery floor. Aurora
was conscious that the blur of faces was closer to her.... She saw
masks, hats, kerchiefs, stubbled chins crowding in, close up to her. A
reek of the man pack came to her, close, stifling, mingled of tobacco,
alcohol, and the worse effluvia of many men excited.... The terror, the
horror, the disgust, the repugnance of it all fell on her like a
blanket, stifling, suffocating, terrifying. She no longer reasoned--it
was only desperation, terror, which made her spread out her arms from
lintel to lintel of her little deserted door, where the last sacred
shred of her personal privacy now was periled. The last instinctive,
virginal--yes, virginal--terror at the intrusion of man, of men, of many
men, was hers now. Home--sanctuary--refuge--all, all was gone. She
stood, disheveled, her gown now half loosed at the neck as she spread
her weak arms open across her door. Her eyes were large, round, open,
staring, her face a tragic mask as she stood trying--a woman, weak and
quite alone--to beat back the passion of these who now had come to rob
her of the last--the very last--of the things dear to her; the last of
the things sacred to her, the things any woman ought to claim inviolate
and under sanctuary, no matter who or what she is or ever may have been.
But the fever, the hysteria of these no longer left either reason or
decency to them, neither any manner of respect for the sacredness of
womanhood; a thing for the most part inherent even under the severest
strains ever brought to bear on man to make him lower than the
brute--the brute which at its basest never lacks acknowledgment of the
claims of sex.
These men had reverted, dropped, declined as only man himself, noblest
and lowest of all animals, may do. There was no mercy in them, indeed no
comprehension, else the appeal of the outraged horror on the face of
Aurora Lane must have driven them back, or have struck them down where
they stood.
"You git on out of the way now!" she heard the coarse voice of someone
say in her face....
She held her arms out across her door only for an instant longer--she
never knew by whom it was, or when, that they were swept down, and she
herself swept aside, crumpled in a corner of her room.
The mob was in her home; she had no sanctuary! She caught glimpses of
dark shoulders, compacted by the narrowness of the little rooms, surging
on in and over everything, into every room, testing every crack and
crevice. She heard laughs, oaths, obscenity such as she had never
dreamed men used--for she knew little of the man animal--heard the
rising unison of voices recording a renewed disappointment and chagrin.
"Damn her! She's got away with him!" called out someone.
"Sure she has--we might of expected it," rejoined another. "She always
gets by with it somehow--she's pulled the wool over our eyes all her
life. She's fooled us now once more."
"What'll we do, boys?" cried out the falsetto of the tall young man,
whose face was not set strong with a man's beard-roots. "Are we going to
let her get away with it like this?"
He made some sort of answer for himself, for there came the crash of
broken glass as he flung some object across the room.
It was enough--it was the cue. "Smash her up, boys!" cried out another
voice. "Put her out of business now! She's fooled us for the last time."
They did not find Don Lane, not though they searched this house as they
had the jail. So now their anger caught them, resentful, unreasoning,
unfeeling, brutal anger....
So they wrecked the little house of Aurora Lane. They tore down the
pictures from the walls, the curtains from the windows, broke in the
windows themselves. They smashed one piece of furniture against another.
They even tore up the little white bed--at which for twenty years
nightly Aurora Lane had kneeled to pray. Someone caught up one of the
pillows, laughing loudly. "Here you are, here's plenty, I reckon! Damn
you! You're lucky we don't give you a ride. Tar'n feathers, 'n a ride on
a rail--that's the medicine for such as you."
The thought of escape, of rescue, of resistance now had passed from the
mind of Aurora Lane. Frozen, speechless, motionless, she waited,
helpless before this blind fury. They had been after Don, and they had
not found him. Where was Don? And what would they now do to her? What
was that last coarse, terrible threat that they had meant?
She caught her torn frock again to her throat as she saw, not a definite
movement toward her, but a cessation of movement, a pause, a silence,
which seemed more terrible and more ominous than anything yet in all
this hour of torment and terror. What would they do now?
They had halted, paused, they stood irresolute, still a pack, a mass, a
mob, not yet resolved into units of thinking, reasoning, human beings;
when without warning suddenly, there came something to give them cause
for thought.
There was still a rather dense crowd around the gate, on the walk, where
some score or more lingered, who either had not entered the house or who
had emerged from it. It was against the edge of this mass that a
heavily built man, heavy of face, heavy of hand, cast himself as he now
came running up.
It was the sheriff, Dan Cowles. He thrust a revolver barrel into the
face of the nearest man, caught another by the shoulder. A halt, a
pause, whether of irresolution or of doubt, of indecision or of shame,
came like a falling and restraining hand upon all this lately demoniacal
assemblage. They did not move. It was as though a net had been sprung
above them all.
"Halt!" called out the voice of the sheriff, high and clear. "What are
you doing here?"
"It's the sher'f!" croaked one gray beard farther back. "God! what'll he
do to us now?"
The feeling of apprehension gave courage to some of the bolder. Two or
three sprang upon Cowles from behind and broke him down. He fell, his
revolver pulled from his hand. He looked up into faces that he knew.
"Make a move and you'll get it," said a hoarse, croaking voice above
him. "Shut up now and keep quiet, and keep to yourself what you seen.
We're just having a little surprise party, that's all. We're only
cleaning up this town."
But now another figure came running--more than one. Judge Henderson
himself had heard the tumult on the streets. It was he who first hurried
up to the edge of the crowd.
"Men!" he cried, holding up his hand. "What are you doing? Disperse, in
the name of the law! I command it!"
They had long been used to obeying the voice of Judge Henderson. He was
their guide, their counselor, their leader. Some hesitated now.
And then Judge Henderson pushed into the little group, looked over their
heads, their shoulders--and saw what ruin had been wrought in Aurora
Lane's little home. He saw Aurora standing there, outraged in every
fiber, desecrated in her very soul, the ruins of her lost sanctuary
lying all about her and on her face the last, last anguish of a woman
who has said farewell to all, everything--life, happiness, peace, hope,
and trust in God.
Henderson cast his own hands to his face as he pushed back from that
sight. He stood trembling and silent, unstrung by one swift, remorseless
blow from his own soul, his own long sleeping conscience.
Afar off, in the village, someone rang a bell--that at the engine house.
Its summons of alarm called out every townsman not already in the
streets.
But before this time reaction had begun in the mob. Something about
Judge Henderson--the sudden change in his attitude--the blanched terror,
the awful horror which showed now in his face--seemed to bring reason to
their own inflamed and muddled minds. And now, as they hesitated, they
felt the impact of two other strong men who flung themselves against
them, shouldered their way through, up to the side of the struggling
sheriff. Those in the way looked into the barrels of two revolvers, one
held in each hand of a tall man, a giant in his rugged strength, as
those knew whom he jostled aside in his savage on-coming.
"Hold on, men!" cried out the great voice of Horace Brooks. "I'll kill
the first man that makes a move. Law or no law, I'll kill you if you
move. What are you doing here?"
At his side there was another, a young man--white-faced--a tall young
man whom not all of them had seen before, whom not many recognized now
in the sudden confusion as they swayed back, jostling one and another in
the attempt to get away--the young man, the prisoner they had wanted and
not found. The young man swung at one arm of Hod Brooks, tried to wrest
from him one of the revolvers--sought to gain some weapon with which he
might kill. But Hod Brooks kept him away.
"Get back," he said, "leave it to us. God! Don't look at that! They've
smashed her place all to hell!"
Still another man came, running, shouting--calling out--calling some of
those present by their own names. It was old Eph Adamson, and tears were
streaming down his face.
"You men!" he called out, and he named them one after another. "You're
my neighbors, you're my friends. What are you doing here--oh, my
God!--my God! What have you done? She's a good woman--I tell you she's a
good woman."
The three of these newcomers broke their way in to the side of the
sheriff, who by this time was up to his knees. They caught his gun away
from the man who had taken it.
"Give it to me!" said the low, cold voice of the young man who was
fighting--and before his straight thudding blows a man dropped every now
and then as he came on, struggling desperately to get the weapon. "Give
it to me!"
He reached out his hand for the sheriff's gun; but still they put him
away, gasping, his eyes with murder in them.
"Get back," cried Horace Brooks. "Leave it alone. Get back. Look out,
men--he'll shoot!"
There were five of them now who made a little group. Two others came
running to join them--Nels Jorgens, the wagon-maker and blacksmith--at
his side the spare figure of the gray-bearded minister, Rawlins, of the
Church of Christ.
"Get into them now, Dan!" cried the great voice of Horace Brooks. "Break
through."
So they broke through. Men fell and stumbled, whether from blows or in
the confusion of their own efforts to escape. At the edges of the crowd
men turned and ran--ran as fast as they could. After a time they of the
smaller party were almost alone.
The sheriff turned away, picking up a coat which he found lying on the
ground. The tall young man who had fought at his side stood now leaning
against the fence, his face dropped into his hands, shaking his head
from side to side, unable to weep. Cowles stepped up to him.
"I'm glad you come, boy," said he, "but it's no place for you here. I
must have left the door open when I went away--I plumb forgot it.
Where've you been, anyhow?"
"You forgot--you left the door unlocked after she went away--Anne. But I
wasn't trying to escape--I wasn't going out of town."
"Where was you, then?"
"I was down at the bridge--I was thinking what to do. Once my mother was
going to take me there.... But I thought of her--Anne, you know, and my
mother, too. I hardly knew what was right.... I heard the noise...."
Dan Cowles looked at him soberly. "Run on down to the jail now, son, and
tell my wife to lock you in. Tell her I'll be on down, soon's I can."
Judge Henderson, white-faced, trembling, looked in the starlight into
the face of the one man whom he classed as his rival, his enemy in this
town--it was a wide, white face with narrow and burning eyes, a
Berserker face framed with its fringe of red. Horace Brooks himself was
still almost sobbing with sheer fighting rage. There was that in his eye
terrible to look upon.
"Oh, my God!" said Judge Henderson again and again. "Oh, my God!--my
God!----" He supported himself against the broken posts of what had been
the little gate of Aurora Lane.