"Yes, Katharine, we will be there," said both the women at once.
"And a greater than they will be there, Katharine," added the old man, solemnly, and resting one hand on her head a moment, he turned away.
The two women saw that his lip quivered as he passed through the door, but to Katharine he was an embodiment of sublime strength, and it took away half her courage when his shadow disappeared from the threshold of her prison. Alas, she was nothing but a girl, timid from want of experience, and greatly dependent for strength on those she loved. When Katharine Allen was left alone she began to realize that the day of her great trouble was near at hand. A faintness like that of death itself crept over her, and she sat down in the midst of her dungeon chamber, sinking down upon the floor in a wild, dreary way, that would have brought tears to the eyes of her worst enemy.
By many an anxious question she had won from the jailor a general knowledge of the forms which attend a criminal trial. She knew that crowds of curious people, perhaps coarse-hearted people, would jostle her on the way to prison—that scores on scores of eyes would follow her with hate and loathing. She saw the band of jurors grasping her life in their will, listening with heavy countenances to the evidence of a crime that was not hers, but of which it seemed impossible that any human tribunal could absolve her.
Then, going to and from the trial, little children would look up at her as they had done when she passed the red school-house at Shrub Oak, some with timid pity, others with coarse amazement, and others still ready to break forth into hoots and sneers, as if some abhorrent animal had crossed their path. These thoughts were hard to endure. She had so dearly loved little children, and turned so naturally for affection toward all living things, that the edict of hate, though undeserved, made her shrink with absolute pain.
She took up her Bible and tried to read, but the letters ran together on the page, harassing her sight, but giving back no sense. Thus the evening found her going out into blank space till the darkness crept through her prison bars and fell over her like a pall.
CHAPTER LII.
THE STREETS AND THE COURT HOUSE.
The next day found a crowd around the court house, hours before the time for opening—an eager-eyed, jostling throng, to whom a trial for life was sure to bring keen excitement of some kind. In a Puritan State, where places of amusement are seldom found, any thing calculated to excite public curiosity is an event which makes the most painful occasions a sort of holiday for the populace. The horrible fascination which a trial like that always possesses for the human mind was added to other feelings with which the people of that day frequented the courts of justice, and any trial which had a tragic interest for the people, drew crowds around the court house, full of eager curiosity, and sometimes almost ferocious excitement—crowds which watched the progress of events like men enthralled by the horror of a terrible play.
The events which caused the arrest of Katharine Allen had been a favorite theme of conversation for months. Public excitement was at its highest pitch; and, when the day of her trial came, a stranger, passing through the streets, might have believed that some event was transpiring in which the highest interests of the whole community were at stake.