The same day the results declared themselves.
Time enough had now elapsed for report to spread through the district the news of what had happened at the farm. Already aware of the bad feeling existing between the men, the neighbors had been now informed (no doubt by the laborers present) of the deplorable scene that had taken place under my bedroom window. Public opinion declares itself in America without the slightest reserve, or the slightest care for consequences. Public opinion declared on this occasion that the lost man was the victim of foul play, and held one or both of the brothers Meadowcroft responsible for his disappearance. Later in the day, the reasonableness of this serious view of the case was confirmed in the popular mind by a startling discovery. It was announced that a Methodist preacher lately settled at Morwick, and greatly respected throughout the district, had dreamed of John Jago in the character of a murdered man, whose bones were hidden at Morwick Farm. Before night the cry was general for a verification of the preacher’s dream. Not only in the immediate district, but in the town of Narrabee itself, the public voice insisted on the necessity of a search for the mortal remains of John Jago at Morwick Farm.
In the terrible turn which matters had now taken, Mr. Meadowcroft the elder displayed a spirit and an energy for which I was not prepared.
“My sons have their faults,” he said, “serious faults; and nobody knows it better than I do. My sons have behaved badly and ungratefully toward John Jago; I don’t deny that, either. But Ambrose and Silas are not murderers. Make your search! I ask for it; no, I insist on it, after what has been said, in justice to my family and my name!”
The neighbors took him at his word. The Morwick section of the American nation organized itself on the spot. The sovereign people met in committee, made speeches, elected competent persons to represent the public interests, and began the search the next day. The whole proceeding, ridiculously informal from a legal point of view, was carried on by these extraordinary people with as stern and strict a sense of duty as if it had been sanctioned by the highest tribunal in the land.
Naomi met the calamity that had fallen on the household as resolutely as her uncle himself. The girl’s courage rose with the call which was made on it. Her one anxiety was for Ambrose.
“He ought to be here,” she said to me. “The wretches in this neighborhood are wicked enough to say that his absence is a confession of his guilt.”
She was right. In the present temper of the popular mind, the absence of Ambrose was a suspicious circumstance in itself.
“We might telegraph to New York,” I suggested, “if you only knew where a message would be likely to find him.”
“I know the hotel which the Meadowcrofts use at New York,” she replied. “I was sent there, after my father’s death, to wait till Miss Meadowcroft could take me to Morwick.”