“Surely,” Marion said to her, “being tried by a jury in the mountains must be a solemn affair.”
“It is,” said Florence, swallowing hard, “and Ransom Turner told me last night this was the first time in the history of the mountains that a woman has been tried for carrying concealed weapons.”
“It will be a great occasion!” Marion could see the humor of the situation. “When is it to come off?”
“Ransom says that the judge has set the trial a week from next Monday.”
“That’s school election day. All Laurel Branch will be there!”
“Let them come!” said Florence, a gleam of fire in her eye. “I haven’t done anything to be ashamed of! They want a fight. We’ll give them one—a battle royal! They’ve already lost one point; they must give me a jury. We’ll make them lose some more. I shouldn’t wonder if the tide would turn and the power that is higher than I would turn this bit of meanness and trickery to our advantage.”
The forenoon of that day passed much as had the earlier hours of other days—study and lessons, recess, then again the droning of voices blended with the lazy buzzing of flies and the distant songs of birds.
In spite of the quiet smoothness of the passing hours, there was in the air that ominous tenseness which one feels but cannot explain.
This was heightened fourfold by a strange occurrence. Just as Florence was about to ring the bell after the noon hour, Marion drew her to a gaping window that looked out on the upper landscape and pointed with a trembling finger to a solitary figure perched atop a giant sandstone rock that lay in the center of a deserted clearing a few hundred yards above the schoolhouse.
The figure was that of a mountaineer. At that distance it would have been difficult to have told whether he was young or old. Something about the way he sat slouching over the rifle that lay across his lap reminded Florence of Black Blevens. An involuntary shudder shook her.