On through the street passed the little cortege, the constables marching in front, and pushing aside the people, who, faithful to their New England instincts, yielded almost ungrumblingly to the dictates of those armed with the power they so reverenced—that of the law.
Katharine did not look up again; the deathly pallor had left her face; but around the lips, which still moved at intervals, a smile had settled like a ray of sunlight.
It was a glorious morning; the sun lay golden and warm upon the town; it fell caressingly upon the girl in the prison wagon, revealing her broadly to the rude gaze of those curious eyes.
As they approached the court house, the crowd grew denser. The wagon moved more and more slowly, and the people grew keenly eager, as if curiosity and interest had reached a climax when the victim was about disappearing from their sight.
The court room was a bare, gloomy apartment, where every thing seemed to deepen the usual horror connected with such a place—a dark chamber where the shadows never wholly dispersed. No matter how brightly the sun shone without, the golden radiance broke against the window panes, as if frightened by the appearance of the place, and in passing through the dusty windows, seemed to lose all brilliancy and warmth.
On that day it was packed with a dense crowd, all waiting eagerly for the entrance of the girl whose conviction they had come to witness.
Every one was there—the judge upon his bench, cold and silent as a marble image of justice; the jury in their box, and, a little way off, the witnesses.
Mrs. Allen sat by the side of old Mr. Thrasher; he had taken her hand, meaning to speak some last word of consolation, but the agony in her eyes froze the words upon his lips; he could only hold fast to that withered hand, which in her anguish she wrenched away from him, impatient even of sympathy.
The dead silence of the court room was broken by a dull murmur from without, through which the rattle of the wagon wheels was distinctly audible.
A sound upon the stairs—the tread of heavy feet, and the door swung slowly upon its hinges. A shiver ran through Mrs. Allen's frame; she sank heavily back, moaning. She knew that her child had been brought in; she heard the bustle with which they placed her in the criminal's seat, but when she tried to raise her eyes it seemed as if the lids had turned to iron.