CHAPTER XIX
THE MOB
Anne Oglesby left the jail shortly after the time when church services were ending. As she hurried by Aurora Lane's house in Mulberry Street she saw a light shining from the windows, but she did not enter—she could not have spoken to anyone now.
She evaded any meeting with her guardian after she had made her way back home. Judge Henderson had not known of her absence and was not aware of her return. Anne thus by a certain period of time missed seeing what Dan Cowles presently saw.
It was noticeable that Sabbath day that more than the usual number of farmers' wagons remained in town, quite past the time when the country church members usually started back for their homes. The farmers seemed to be in no hurry, even although they had seen a double church service. There was something restless, something vague, disturbing, over the town. A number of townsmen also seemed impelled to walk back toward the public square. Some strange indefinite summons drew them thither. Little knots of men stood here and there. Groups of women gathered at this or that gallery front.
No one knows the point where in vague public thought a general resolution actually begins. The ripple in the pool spreads widely when a stone is cast. What chance word, or what deliberate resolve, may have started the slowly growing resolution of Spring Valley may not be known; but now a sort of stealthy silence fell over the village as groups gathered here and there, speaking cautiously, in low tones.
A knot of men stood near the corner of the square looking down the street to the light which shone red from the shaded window of Aurora Lane.
"I know what was done right in this here town thirty year ago," said one high pitched voice. "It was old Eph Adamson's father that led them, too. Them was days when——"
"Why ain't Eph in town today?" asked another voice. "I seen considerable of his neighbors around in town today."