A number of women are sitting working together in a big room not unlike
an old English tithe barn in its timbered construction, but with windows
high up next the roof. It is furnished as a courthouse, with the floor
raised next the walls, and on this raised flooring a seat for the
Sheriff, a rough jury box on his right, and a bar to put prisoners to on
his left. In the well in the middle is a table with benches round it.
A few other benches are in disorder round the room. The autumn sun is
shining warmly through the windows and the open door. The women, whose
dress and speech are those of pioneers of civilisation in a territory
of the United States of America, are seated round the table and on the
benches, shucking nuts. The conversation is at its height.
BABSY [a bumptious young slattern, with some good looks] I say that a
man that would steal a horse would do anything.
LOTTIE [a sentimental girl, neat and clean] Well, I never should look at
it in that way. I do think killing a man is worse any day than stealing
a horse.
HANNAH [elderly and wise] I dont say it's right to kill a man. In a
place like this, where every man has to have a revolver, and where
theres so much to try people's tempers, the men get to be a deal too
free with one another in the way of shooting. God knows it's hard enough
to have to bring a boy into the world and nurse him up to be a man only
to have him brought home to you on a shutter, perhaps for nothing, or
only just to shew that the man that killed him wasn't afraid of him.
But men are like children when they get a gun in their hands: theyre not
content til theyve used it on somebody.
JESSIE [a good-natured but sharp-tongued, hoity-toity young woman;
Babsy's rival in good looks and her superior in tidiness] They shoot for
the love of it. Look at them at a lynching. Theyre not content to hang
the man; but directly the poor creature is swung up they all shoot
him full of holes, wasting their cartridges that cost solid money, and
pretending they do it in horror of his wickedness, though half of them
would have a rope round their own necks if all they did was known--let
alone the mess it makes.
LOTTIE. I wish we could get more civilized. I don't like all this
lynching and shooting. I don't believe any of us like it, if the truth
were known.
BABSY. Our Sheriff is a real strong man. You want a strong man for a
rough lot like our people here. He aint afraid to shoot and he aint
afraid to hang. Lucky for us quiet ones, too.
JESSIE. Oh, don't talk to me. I know what men are. Of course he aint
afraid to shoot and he aint afraid to hang. Wheres the risk in that
with the law on his side and the whole crowd at his back longing for the
lynching as if it was a spree? Would one of them own to it or let
him own to it if they lynched the wrong man? Not them. What they call
justice in this place is nothing but a breaking out of the devil thats
in all of us. What I want to see is a Sheriff that aint afraid not to
shoot and not to hang.
EMMA [a sneak who sides with Babsy or Jessie, according to the fortune
of war] Well, I must say it does sicken me to see Sheriff Kemp putting
down his foot, as he calls it. Why don't he put it down on his wife?
She wants it worse than half the men he lynches. He and his Vigilance
Committee, indeed!
BABSY [incensed] Oh, well! if people are going to take the part of
horse-thieves against the Sheriff--!
JESSIE. Who's taking the part of horse-thieves against the Sheriff?
BABSY. You are. Waitle your own horse is stolen, and youll know better.
I had an uncle that died of thirst in the sage brush because a negro
stole his horse. But they caught him and burned him; and serve him
right, too.
EMMA. I have known that a child was born crooked because its mother had
to do a horse's work that was stolen.
BABSY. There! You hear that? I say stealing a horse is ten times worse
than killing a man. And if the Vigilance Committee ever gets hold of
you, youd better have killed twenty men than as much as stole a saddle
or bridle, much less a horse.
[Elder Daniels comes in.]
ELDER DANIELS. Sorry to disturb you, ladies; but the Vigilance Committee
has taken a prisoner; and they want the room to try him in.
JESSIE. But they cant try him til Sheriff Kemp comes back from the
wharf.
ELDER DANIELS. Yes; but we have to keep the prisoner here til he comes.
BABSY. What do you want to put him here for? Cant you tie him up in the
Sheriff's stable?
ELDER DANIELS. He has a soul to be saved, almost like the rest of us.
I am bound to try to put some religion into him before he goes into his
Maker's presence after the trial.
HANNAH. What has he done, Mr Daniels?
ELDER DANIELS. Stole a horse.
BABSY. And are we to be turned out of the town hall for a horse-thief?
Aint a stable good enough for his religion?
ELDER DANIELS. It may be good enough for his, Babsy; but, by your leave,
it is not good enough for mine. While I am Elder here, I shall umbly
endeavour to keep up the dignity of Him I serve to the best of my small
ability. So I must ask you to be good enough to clear out. Allow me. [He
takes the sack of husks and put it out of the way against the panels of
the jury box].
THE WOMEN [murmuring] Thats always the way. Just as we'd settled down to
work. What harm are we doing? Well, it is tiresome. Let them finish the
job themselves. Oh dear, oh dear! We cant have a minute to ourselves.
Shoving us out like that!
HANNAH. Whose horse was it, Mr Daniels?
ELDER DANIELS [returning to move the other sack] I am sorry to say
that it was the Sheriff's horse--the one he loaned to young Strapper.
Strapper loaned it to me; and the thief stole it, thinking it was mine.
If it had been mine, I'd have forgiven him cheerfully. I'm sure I
hoped he would get away; for he had two hours start of the Vigilance
Committee. But they caught him. [He disposes of the other sack also].
JESSIE. It cant have been much of a horse if they caught him with two
hours start.
ELDER DANIELS [coming back to the centre of the group] The strange thing
is that he wasn't on the horse when they took him. He was walking; and
of course he denies that he ever had the horse. The Sheriff's brother
wanted to tie him up and lash him till he confessed what he'd done with
it; but I couldn't allow that: it's not the law.
BABSY. Law! What right has a horse-thief to any law? Law is thrown away
on a brute like that.
ELDER DANIELS. Dont say that, Babsy. No man should be made to confess
by cruelty until religion has been tried and failed. Please God I'll get
the whereabouts of the horse from him if youll be so good as to clear
out from this. [Disturbance outside]. They are bringing him in. Now
ladies! please, please.
[They rise reluctantly. Hannah, Jessie, and Lottie retreat to the
Sheriff's bench, shepherded by Daniels; but the other women crowd
forward behind Babsy and Emma to see the prisoner.
Blanco Posnet it brought in by Strapper Kemp, the Sheriff's brother, and
a cross-eyed man called Squinty. Others follow. Blanco is evidently a
blackguard. It would be necessary to clean him to make a close guess at
his age; but he is under forty, and an upturned, red moustache, and the
arrangement of his hair in a crest on his brow, proclaim the dandy in
spite of his intense disreputableness. He carries his head high, and has
a fairly resolute mouth, though the fire of incipient delirium tremens
is in his eye.
His arms are bound with a rope with a long end, which Squinty holds.
They release him when he enters; and he stretches himself and lounges
across the courthouse in front of the women. Strapper and the men remain
between him and the door.]
BABSY [spitting at him as he passes her] Horse-thief! horse-thief!
OTHERS. You will hang for it; do you hear? And serve you right. Serve
you right. That will teach you. I wouldn't wait to try you. Lynch him
straight off, the varmint. Yes, yes. Tell the boys. Lynch him.