“Wal, a man can’t be sure o’ a thing unless he sees it. I didn’t see it myself wi’ my own eyes. For all that, I’ve had proof clar enough to convince me; an’ I’m reddy to stan’ at the back o’ it.”
“Damn the letter!” exclaims one of the impatient ones, who has already spoken in similar strain; “the picture, too! Don’t mistake me, boys. I ain’t referrin’ eyther to the young lady as wrote it, nor him she wrote to. I only mean that neither letter nor picture are needed to prove what we’re all wantin’ to know, an’ do know. They arn’t nor warn’t reequired. To my mind, from the fust go off, nothin’ ked be clarer than that Charley Clancy has been killed, cepting as to who killed him—murdered him, if ye will; for that’s what’s been done. Is there a man on the ground who can’t call out the murderer?”
The interrogatory is answered by a unanimous negative, followed by the name, “Dick Darke.”
And along with the answer commences a movement throughout the crowd. A scattering with threats heard—some muttered, some spoken aloud—while men are observed looking to their guns, and striding towards their horses; as they do so, saying sternly,—
“To the jail!”
In ten minutes after both men and horses are in motion moving along the road between Clancy’s cottage and the county town. They form a phalanx, if not regular in line of march, terribly imposing in aspect.
Could Richard Darke, from inside the cell where he is confined, but see that approaching cavalcade, hear the conversation of those who compose it, and witness their angry gesticulations, he would shake in his shoes, with trembling worse than any ague that ever followed fever.