When Mason entered the school-room after his encounter with the father he was not surprised to find the whole battalion of Butts infantry drawn up in martial array, while Angeline held forth to the assembled pupils on the subject of the master's guilt in countenancing Tom Grayson, and the general meanness of the whole Grayson "click," living and dead. When the auditors saw Hiram come in they fell away to their seats; but Angeline, pleased to show her defiance of the master, who could no longer punish her, stood bolt upright with her bonnet on until the school had been called to order. The younger Buttses sat down from habitual respect for authority, and the brother pulled off his hat; but Angeline jammed it on his head again, and pulled him to his feet. She might have left before the school began; but she preferred to have a row, if possible. So when the school had grown quiet, she boldly advanced to the space in front of the master's desk, with the younger and more timid Buttses slinking behind her.
"Mr. Mason, father's goin' to take me out of school," she said.
"So he told me."
"He wants us to come right straight home this morning."
"Well, you know the road, don't you?" said Hiram, smiling. "If he's in a hurry for you, I should have thought you might have been there by this time."
This reply set the school into an audible smile. Angeline grew red in the face, but the master was standing in silence waiting for her to get out, and the scholars were laughing at her. There was nothing more to be said, and nothing for it but to be gone or burst. In her irritation she seized her youngest sister, who was shamefacedly sneaking into Angeline's skirts, and gave her a sharp jerk, which only added a fresh impulse to the titter of the scholars, and Angeline and her followers were forced to scuffle out of the door in confusion.
Lysander Butts was not a man to give over a struggle. Conflict was his recreation, and he thought he could "spite the master" not only by refusing payment for the tuition his children had already received, but by getting the Timber Creek district to shut Mason out of their school-house. There were those in the district who resented Mason's friendship for the Graysons, but they were not ready to go so far as Butts proposed. And in asking Buchanan to teach school for him a single day Mason had unwittingly made friends against the time of trouble; for the old schoolmaster now took the young man's part, and brought over to his side the three Scotch families in the district, who always acted in unison, as a sort of clan. Butts was at a serious disadvantage in that he lived beyond the limits of the Timber Creek district. "What does he want to come a-maiddlin' wi'us fer?" Buchanan demanded of the Timber Creekers. "Let 'im attaind to the beesness of his own deestrict, and not go to runnin' his wee crookit daivils' lanes doun here." Such arguments, with the help of Mason's good-nature, his popularity with the pupils, and his inflexible determination to keep his own gait, caused the opposition to weaken and die out gradually without doing serious damage to the school.
To this favorable issue the friendly influence of the Albaugh family, who were outside of the district on the other side from Butts, contributed something. With Rachel Albaugh Mason became better acquainted through her interest in Tom's fate. She sought a conversation with the master almost every day to gain information about the case. The placidity of her face was not ruffled by solicitude, the glory of her eyes was not dimmed by tears. But interest in Tom's fate there surely was. It did not greatly matter to her whether Tom had committed the deed or not: in any case he was a bold and daring fellow who had lifted himself out of the commonplace, and who was proportionately interesting to Rachel's imagination.
But the people generally did not see things through the eyes of a romantic young woman. They were for the most part dead against Tom, and the adverse tide set more and more strongly against him when the long August days had worn themselves away and September with its bursts of storm had come in. If Tom had shot Lockwood in a street affray there would have been a disposition to condone the offense, seeing there was "a girl in the case," a circumstance that goes for much in the minds of pioneer people; for girls and horses are two things accounted well worth fighting for in a new country. Some philosophers explain this by saying that both the one and the other are means of ascent in the scale of civilization. But the fact is, that new-country people set much more store by their horses and their sweethearts than they do by civilization, for which, in the abstract, they care but little. They also esteem courage very highly. But to shoot a man in the dark as Lockwood had been shot was cowardly, and cowardice was in itself almost ground enough for hanging a man.
This increased momentum in the popular feeling against Tom could not escape the knowledge of Mason, to whom people talked with some freedom, but he managed to conceal it from Barbara and Mrs. Grayson. His situation indeed was becoming more and more difficult. He foresaw that the maintenance of his present attitude toward Barbara might soon become impossible. To be always near to her, and yet to keep himself so aloof, was more than even his nature would bear. Above all, to see her consumed by sorrow and to be afraid to speak the tenderest word of sympathy was torment. The very aspect of her suffering face set his nerves in a tremor; it became difficult for him to say good-morning to her with composure. There is the uncontrollable in all of us; and self-contained as Hiram was, he came upon the uncontrollable in himself at last.