CHAPTER XIV.
It was past noon when Belinda left the raft, carrying a large basket containing her husband’s clothes and such other articles as there might be pressing need of for him or herself. She hoped to make arrangements for storing their goods in some safe place, and to return in the course of the afternoon with a conveyance for them, and some one to assist in their removal.
She had not gone far when she met a farmer driving leisurely along the road.
“Good-day,” he called to her. “If I was goin’ your way I’d give ye a lift; that basket looks heavy; but I’m comin’ from the town and you a goin’ toward it. Good deal of excitement there to-day. Did ye hear the news?”
“What news?” she asked, her heart leaping into her mouth.
“Why, that they’ve nabbed the murderer; leastways, the scoundrel that attackted that old man on the raft and left him fer dead. They’ve took him to Prairieville to the jail. He’d ought to be strung right up, I say; fer I’ve not the least doubt that he’s at the head o’ the gang o’ burglars that’s been robbin’ here and there till nobody in this whole region of country knows when he and his family and goods is safe.”
He had reined in his horses, and she had set down her basket for a moment’s rest while listening to what he had to say.
“But don’t you think everybody’d ought to have a fair trial?” she asked, with some hesitation.
“That’s so, when there’s any doubt o’ their guilt and any chance o’ their gettin’ their deserts; which, howsomever, there ain’t in this instance, seein’ that the law’s so that they can’t nohow mete out to the murderers the measure they’ve meted to their victims; and that ain’t accordin’ to Scriptur’, nohow you kin fix it,” he said, flecking a fly off his horse’s back with the lash of his whip. “There’s some folks that talk as if ’twas worse than hangin’ to be shut up in State’s prison fer life,” he went on, “but I always notice that them that’s in favor of the criminal is pretty generally o’ the opinion that they’ve gained a good deal fer him when they get a death sentence commuted to that; because, you see, there’s always a chance o’ some governor that wants to secure the votes o’ that class pard’nin’ him out.”
“Yes; but it’s an awful thing to put a man to death, because if you find out afterward that he was innocent, you can’t make it up to him nohow at all,” she said, taking up her basket; and with a parting nod she went on her way.