"Hello, stranger! I say, there! Mister! O, mister! Hello, you ole man on horseback!"
This was the polite manner of address with which the messenger interrupted the theological meditations of the worthy Mr. Donaldson at the moment of his most triumphant anticipations of victory over his opponents.
"Well, what is it?" asked the minister, turning round on the messenger a little tartly; much as one would who is suddenly awakened and not at all pleased to be awakened.
"They's a feller back here as we tuck up fer a hoss-thief, and we had three-quarters of a notion of stringin' on him up; but he says as how as he knows you, and ef you kin do him any good, I hope you'll do it, for I do hate to see a feller being hung, that's sartain shore."
"A horse-thief says that he knows me?" said the parson, not yet fairly awake to the situation. "Indeed? I'm in a great hurry. What does he want? Wants me to pray with him, I suppose. Well, it is never too late. God's election is of grace, and often he seems to select the greatest sinners that he may thereby magnify his grace and get to himself a great name. I'll go and see him."
And with that, Donaldson rode back to the tavern, endeavoring to turn his thoughts out of the polemical groove in which they had been running all day, that he might think of some fitting words to say to a malefactor. But when he stood before the young man he started with surprise.
"What! Morton Goodwin! Have you taken to stealing horses? I should have thought that the unhappy career of your brother, so soon cut short in God's righteousness, would have been a warning to you. My dear young man, how could you bring such disgrace and shame on the gray hairs——"
Before Mr. Donaldson had gotten to this point, a murmur of excitement went through the crowd. They believed that the prisoner's own witness had turned against him and that they had a second quasi sanction from the clergy for the deed of violence they were meditating. Perceiving this, Morton interrupted the minister with some impatience, crying out:
"But, Mr. Donaldson, hold on; you have judged me too quick. These folks are going to hang me without any evidence at all, except that I was riding a good horse. Now, I want you to tell them whose filley yon is."
Mr. Donaldson looked at the mare and declared to the crowd that he had seen this young man riding that colt for more than a year past, and that if they were proceeding against him on a charge of stealing that mare, they were acting most unwarrantably.