When Judge Henderson passed down the office stair, and out across the street toward the narrow little brick walk of the courthouse—which even on that day of the week now held a certain crowd—so disturbed, so preoccupied, was he that he gave no greeting to one or two belated loiterers about the store fronts.
"I reckon that young feller'll get his dose now," said old Aaron Craybill, demi-chorus to this tragedy, following with his bleared eyes the tall and well-groomed figure, frock-coated, top-hatted, which now was passing toward the temple of justice. "I wouldn't like to have no man like the Jedge after me if I'd done what that boy done. He's a-going to get hung, that's what's going to happen to him. Everybody knows Slattery ain't big enough for this case. With a 'Nited States Senator a-prosecutin' it, though, and ten reporters from the cities—well, I guess Spring Valley'll be heard from some!"
"I wonder when the funer'l's goin' to be," said his neighbor, Silas Kneebone. "Of course Rawlins is goin' to preach the sermon. He's good on funer'ls. Seems like he's e'en—a'most as comfortin' at a funer'l as ary minister you could get in this town—and there's quite some ministers here, too."
They hurried on away now presently even as Judge Henderson disappeared in the courthouse door. A strain of music had come to their ears, the sound of reeds and brasses.
"Thar's the band now!" exclaimed Aaron Craybill. "Knight Templar, too! They're goin' over to the hall to practice for the funer'l. Come on ahead! Hurry, Silas!"
Down the street, audible also through the open windows of Judge Henderson's office, came the music. Jerome Westbrook had hastened from his duties on the coroner's jury only to assume his labors as leader of the Spring Valley Silver Cornet Band; and as it was the duty of that band to head the procession of the Knights Templar in the funeral march of Joel Tarbush, himself a brother of the order, it seemed that a certain rehearsal in the infrequent effort of playing under march was needful on this Sabbath day.
Slow-paced, with swords reversed and even step, with eyes looking neither to the right nor to the left, following the music of the wailing horns, the muffled tapping of the drums, it came now into the civic center of the town, this solemn procession. At its head walked Saunders, master in the order, his opportunity now at hand; and behind him, in full regalia, came many others, all the leading citizens of this community, the pillars of the church, the props of the business structure of this village, the leaders and formers of its customs and its social order; all these anxious that the appearance of the secret order in public should be in all ways above reproach, even at cost of this quasi-public rehearsal. Joel Tarbush dead was receiving more tribute than ever had Joel Tarbush living.
In accordance with ritual or custom, after the actual march to the tomb, the musicians must render that selection which has spoken for so many hearts bowed down in weight of woe; but Jerome Westbrook knew that his men needed practice on Pleyel's Hymn; so they gave it now tentatively, in advance, as they passed through the public square on the way to the hall. To the strained senses of Aurora Lane, still sitting with Anne in the office where they had lingered, the wailing of the music seemed a thing unbearable. She caught her hands to her ears.
"Oh, God!" she whispered. "Oh, God! If only they would not."
The white, sad-faced young woman at her side took her trembling hand in her own. "It will pass," said she. "Everything passes. You have been brave all these years. I ought to be brave too! even now—after what you've told me."