The general protest now took on a definite form. The minister spoke for the others. He was little accustomed to the diplomacy of the advocate and he thinly disguised the threat that was the tenor of this speech. He said that one in the position of a circuit judge ought to sustain the better elements of the community in their efforts to get rid of an undesirable person; that the will of the people was not lightly to be disregarded; that the object of making offices elective was that one who refused to consider what the people desired might be replaced by another; and the like.
The judge came up presently for reelection. It was notice to him that the powerful elements which these protesting persons represented would hold him to account. The strength of his political party lay in these mountain counties. He required the support of these elements. And he especially feared a sectarian sentiment against him. He knew the danger of such a sentiment; and how little, once on its way, explanations would avail. This covert threat angered the judge, but he feared to resist it. He dipped his pen into the inkpot before him, and wrote an order committing the prisoner to the county jail. Then he handed it down to the sheriff.
The persons standing about the sheriff drew near to him and read the order. The minister and the school trustee objected to something in the body of the writing, and the sheriff went with them to the judge.
They pointed out that the order directed the commitment of the “Schoolteacher of Hickory Mountain District,” that this term was incorrect, that the prisoner had not been employed by the trustees, that he was not the School-teacher of Hickory Mountain District, and that the order ought not so to designate him.
But the judge, smarting under the lash that had been laid on him, was in no mood to receive a further dictation.
He refused to change what he had written.
CHAPTER XVII
THE several persons who had forced the judge to commit the School-teacher to the county jail, having gone down from the courthouse, remained throughout the day in conference. It was evident that the circuit judge had acted against his own inclination, and that he could not be depended upon to hold the prisoner in custody. Some other method for ridding the community of this undesirable person must be found. Finally, after long reflection, they hit upon a plan.