“Oh, did I call down vengeance upon his head?” she moaned, half aloud; “would he have been slain if I had not cried to God for deliverance from him? O God, Thou knowest I did not desire his death; and Thou hast said, ‘Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver thee.’ I thank Thee for the deliverance, but oh, in what a fearful manner it has been wrought!”
Charlton was going on with his story to Ronald and McAllister. His office was in a room in the second story of a building directly opposite the brewery in which Bangs had sought a hiding-place. He was writing there, he said, when Bangs fired the shot that killed Barney, and starting up at the sound, went to the window, from which he saw all that followed without becoming a participator in the doings of the mob.
“It was horrible!” exclaimed Ronald, upon the conclusion of the narrative, “yet one can’t help feeling that he deserved his fate for his unprovoked murder of a man like Barney—a decent, respectable man, and with a family to support; a good-natured, harmless fellow, so far as I can judge from what I have seen of him.”
“Yes, sir; Barney Nolan was a’ that,” said McAllister; “he’s been employed aboot the farm here lang enough for me to mak’ sure o’ that.”
Charlton lingered some time longer, hoping for another glimpse of Miriam, but she did not rejoin them, and finally he said good-evening and went away.
“Where is Miriam?” asked Mrs. Heath, joining Ronald on the porch.
“I don’t know, grandma,” he answered, in some surprise; “I thought she was with you.”
“No; I left her here. Perhaps she has gone to see Nora. Oh, what an awful thing for that poor woman to have her husband shot down in that sudden, cruel way!”
“Yes; one cannot wonder at the exasperation of the public; and considering the impossibility of meting out to the murderer his deserved punishment, through the agency of the law, I can hardly blame them for lynching him; but dragging him through the streets, bumping his head on the cobble-stones, was, to say the least, unnecessary cruelty.”
“Did they do that, Ronald? Oh, how horrible!”