The word rang through the building. The infuriated crowd pervaded the cell in a moment, like some tumultuous flood. The jailer himself was not to be found. His wife and children had sought refuge elsewhere.
The doors were guarded against the sheriff, while a select party searched every room in the house. Some serious fright was occasioned to certain malefactors, who had reason to fear the people more than the law, and esteemed the jail in some sort as a haven, but there were many who appealed for liberation. One of these, a victim of the federal court, Big Brandy Owen by name, made so earnest an insistence that his case was considered. But he was no genuine moonshiner, it was argued; he was only a saloon-keeper who had fallen a victim to the liquor laws. “We dunno ye,” they prevaricated. “Ye ain’t labeled Brandy, ye see.” And so they locked his door upon him.
They did as much damage as they could, in default of accomplishing their object, and on retiring they dispersed without recognition among the peaceful citizens who had weakly striven, half-heartedly, to uphold the law.
The moon was up. The Great Smoky Mountains, in magnificent immensity, clasped the world in the gigantic curve about the horizon east and south. The trees seemed veiled in some fine, elusive silver gauze, so gleaming a line of light came to the eye from their boughs. Frost sparkled upon the grass-fringed streets. The shadows were sharp and black. The stars—few now—faintly scintillated in empyreal distances. The town was so still, not even a dog barked. The rescuers experienced a luxury of bravado in the realization that it was for fear of them that it was fain to hold its breath and lie in darkness, save for the light of the moon. Perhaps it was as well, and spared further mischief, that they exulted in riding their horses at a gallop through the streets, breaking now and then into wild fantasies of yells, with a fantastic refrain of echoes.
The rioters after a time disappeared. A long interval, and perhaps a single equestrian figure would ride down the straggling street and whoop aloud, and turn in his saddle to listen for a comrade’s response, and then ride on.
Finally silence fell. The waning moon was high. The night was well-nigh spent. Sundry movements of shadows on window blinds, sundry dim yellow lights showing through them, despite the lustre of the moon, indicated that the inhabitants considered that the drama had been played, and were betaking themselves to bed. Alethea Sayles, crouching in the dormer window of the cottage where the witness fee had sufficed to lodge her, looking with dilated eyes over the little town enmeshed in the silver net of its frosted trees, strained her ears in the silence, and exclaimed in the anguish of suspense, “They mus’ hev tuk him out, Aunt Dely, or they wouldn’t hev been so gamesome.”
She knew little of town ways. Had the mob been successful, the frost itself could not vanish more silently.
Mrs. Purvine, her wise head pillowed, for the first time in her life, as she remarked, on “town folkses’ geese,” sleepily assented.
The moon looked down in Alethea’s upturned eyes. The pine that stood by the window tapped upon the pane. She felt as if it were a friendly and familiar thing, here where there were so few trees; for the sight of houses—crowded, indeed, they seemed—overwhelmed her in some sort, and embarrassed her. It was all a-shimmer with the frost; even an empty bird’s-nest on a bough was a miracle of delicate interweaving of silver gleams. Her hair in its rich dishevelment fell in coils and tangles half-way to her waist. She clasped her hands over one knee. It was an interval of peace.
“Lethe!” said Mrs. Purvine, rousing herself. “Ain’t that gal kem ter bed yit!” The admonition was a subterfuge. She was about to impart information. “Lethe, ef ye b’lieve me, these hyar crazy muskrats o’ town folks hev got sun-bonnets ready-made in these hyar stores.”