About the middle of the afternoon there was a popular demonstration in the neighborhood of the capitol, the crowds lounging in that direction in an objectless kind of way, but when, finding themselves under the shadow of the great building, developing a sudden enthusiasm for something, or some individual, they scarce knew what. For more than an hour they besieged the State functionaries with loud huzzahs, and only when they saw that the demonstration had been misunderstood, or that they would be given the cold shoulder, in any event, did they relinquish the purpose of hearing some report from their law-givers, and being heard in return. But when the countermarch movement began, very little time was consumed by the crowd in transporting itself out of sight and hearing—individuals, and especially those who had been conspicuous in the movement, walking hurriedly, and with their heads down, as if to conceal an expression of chagrin that lurked in their countenances.
At sunset the situation was unchanged, the main streets emptying themselves of their human currents, in obedience to some suburban attraction at intervals, only to be filled next hour with the chaffering multitudes, who resumed their fatuous pursuit of the unknown quantity in the news-problem with the same heat that it had been undertaken in the early portion of the day. It was at this precise hour that the Governor was observed to leave the State-house, accompanied by two gentlemen of his staff, and walk hurriedly along Cedar Street, in the direction of the public square. The crowds seemed determined to place their own interpretation on this movement, and having assembled in large force at the point where College street intersects that along which the party were passing, loud hootings were indulged in, and in forcing a passage through the crowd, the obnoxious individuals subjected to rougher jostling than was thought to be required by the emergency. Turning to reply to some taunt volunteered from the crowd, one of the gentlemen lost his hat by a blow from behind, and was deprived of the gratification which he might otherwise have received upon relieving himself of a few sentences of eloquent invective, by a storm of derisive cheers, which drowned every other sound. At the next crossing the demonstration was equally as large, if not so aggressive, and when the official trio reached a neighboring building, and immured themselves within its walls, they doubtless looked back upon the reminiscence with feelings of relief. But from after developments, it may be inferred that they had no sooner felt themselves exempt from the perils which had lately beset them, than they entered upon a conference to devise ways and means of escape from their temporary fortress (for such the building in which they had taken refuge proved to be). This would not have been difficult of accomplishment, in any event, and the tactics resolved upon by the besieged rendered it comparatively easy of attainment.
In less than ten minutes the throngs, who had assembled with no more serious object in view than to gratify an idle curiosity, and express their unfriendliness to their taskmasters by the methods usually adopted, had been taken up by the absorbent elements of the crowd flowing newsward, and were no more. If the Governor’s party had expected resistance of this character, they were to be deceived, for by the time the lamps were lighted, almost a calm pervaded that quarter; and when, a few moments later, the first of the party (who proved to be Governor Brownlow) left the building by a postern-gate in the rear, he was seen by none but the spies who had been set to watch. Hurrying along an alleyway, the honorable refugee had crossed two squares ere he emerged upon the broad street which led across an unfrequented portion of the city, to the vicinity of the mansion which he occupied. Halting here to reconnoitre and indulge a moment of quiet reflection, after the exciting events through which he had passed, he was suddenly encountered by a form of the peril from which he was seeking to escape that had more than once been suggested to his fancy, but which now presented itself in such palpable outline, and with an attitude so positively menacing, that his courage forsook him for the moment, and he recovered from the manner of a suppliant just in time to save himself from a very humiliating scene. The thing in question was an ugly and even frightful embodiment of the genus Ku-Klux, which, having been successful in its contemplated surprise, was very naturally disposed to dictate terms to its victim. As no violence was intended, it had time, however, for but a few tragic sentences, adopted from a repertory prepared for the occasion, before the frightened official had recovered his wits and his Greek.
Raising himself to his full stature, the Governor denied the assumed ghostliness of his interlocutor in these precise words: “Do you not know, fiend, that I possess the authority to have you shot or hung, and that I am strongly persuaded to exercise it?”
To which the “fiend” retorted in the following laconism “But how many suns, O man! would look upon the deed unavenged?” and realizing that they were quits, the parties to this amusing by-comedy went their respective ways.
The report of this transaction reaching the public ear via the sensation-mongers, a few hours later, it was taken up in its amended form and bandied about the coffee houses and street-corner gatherings until it finally lost all proportions, and at nine o’clock, precisely, was guilty of sending an old gentleman to bed, on the outskirts of the city, under the conviction that Governor Brownlow had been murdered by the Ku-Klux.
But though for twenty hours her streets had flowed with lava tides of that wild element of which mobs are made, and whatsoever was leonine in her temperament had been appealed to by rumors of war, that rode past on every breeze, somewhere in the “wee sma’ hours ayont the twal,” the last star had paled in the news’ firmament without witnessing anything more tragical than may be found among the occurrences related in this chapter, and the tired city slept.