Out of the satisfied and amiable murmur which spread through the crowd at this, there rose a sharp, querulous voice:
“Give us the names of the men who, you say, were responsible.”
“No, I can’t do that to-night. But if you read the next list of indictments found by the grand jury of Dearborn County, my word as a lawyer you’ll find them all there.”
The loudest cheer of the evening burst upon the air at this, and there was a sustained roar when Tracy’s name was shouted out above the tumult. Some few men crowded up to the steps to shake hands with him, and many others called out to him a personal “good-night.” The last of those to shake the accumulated snow from their collars and hats, and turn their steps homeward, noted that the whole front of the Minster house had suddenly become illuminated.
Thus Reuben’s simple and highly fortuitous conquest of what had been planned to be a mob was accomplished. It is remembered to this day as the best thing any man ever did single-handed in Thessaly, and it is always spoken of as the foundation of his present political eminence. But he himself would say now, upon reflection, that he succeeded because the better sense of his auditors, from the outset, wanted him to succeed, and because he was lucky enough to impress a very decent and bright-witted lot of men with the idea that he wasn’t a humbug.
At the moment he was in no mood to analyze his success. His hair was streaming with melted snow, his throat was painfully hoarse and sore, and the fatigue from speaking so loud, and the reaction from his great excitement, combined to make him feel a very weak brother indeed.
So utterly wearied was he that when the door of the now lighted hallway opened behind him, and Miss Kate herself, standing in front of the servant on the threshold, said: “We want you to come in, Mr. Tracy,” he turned mechanically and went in, thinking more of a drink of some sort and a chance to sit down beside her, than of all the possible results of his speech to the crowd.
The effect of warmth and welcome inside the mansion was grateful to all his senses. He parted with his hat and overcoat, took the glass of claret which was offered him, and allowed himself to be led into the drawing-room and given a seat, all in a happy daze, which was, in truth, so very happy, that he was dimly conscious of the beginnings of tears in his eyes. It seemed now that the strain upon his mind and heart—the anger, and fright, and terrible anxiety—had lasted for whole weary years. Trial by soul-torture was new to him, and this ordeal through which he had passed left him curiously flabby and tremulous.
He lay back in the easy-chair in an ecstasy of physical lassitude and mental content, surrendering himself to the delight of watching the beautiful girl before him, and of listening to the music of her voice. The liquid depths of brown eyes into which he looked, and the soft tones which wooed his hearing, produced upon him vaguely the sensation of shining white robes and celestial harps—an indefinitely glorious recompense for the travail that lay behind in the valley of the shadow of death.