“Yes, it is,” Silas replied; “but if that's all the mob acted on they acted on powerful flimsy evidence. I've heard men say so this mornin'—good lawyers right here in town. Besides, I myself heard—why, a man set right whar you are a-settin' at this minute, Brother Hoag, an' told me not ten minutes ago that he seed Pete with his own eyes pick up the hat on the side o' the road long after the killin'. Now, you see, the fact that Pete had Rose's hat wouldn't actually condemn 'im in a court of law, while it would be proof enough for a drunken gang o' hotheaded nigger-haters. For all we know, somebody else done the killin' an' thro wed the hat down. I myself don't believe that even a fool nigger would kill a man an' tote his hat along a public road for everybody to see, an' take it home an' give it to one o' his boys to wear. It don't stand to reason.”
A grim look of blended anger and chagrin had settled on Hoag's face, He crossed his legs and tapped the heel of his boot with the butt of his riding-whip.
“I'm not takin' up for the—the men that did the job,” he said. “I have no idea who they are or whar they come from—all abouts in the mountains, I reckon; but any man with an eye in his head can see that the niggers in this country are gettin' out of all bounds. Thar is not a day that some white woman ain't mistreated or scared out o' her senses. I wouldn't trust a nigger an inch. I've seed the best of 'em—psalm-singers an' exhorters in meetin'—turn right round an' commit acts that only hell itself could devise.”
“I know, I know,” Silas sighed; “an' in my opinion that's exactly why we need law—an' good law at that. Niggers are natural imitators of the whites; they see lawlessness, an' they git lawless. Mob law stirs up the worst that's in 'em. They see injustice done—the wrong man lynched, for instance—an' they brood over it in secret an' want to hit back, an' they do it the first chance. I don't see you at meetin' often, Brother Hoag, an' you may not depend much on Scripture—many busy men don't, these days; but it is my chief guide, an' our Lord an' Master laid down rules of conduct that if they was half obeyed thar wouldn't be a speck o' strife betwixt white an' black. Lovin' the humblest—'the least of these,' as our Saviour put it—an' turnin' t'other cheek as a daily practice wouldn't leave an openin' for such as that last night.”
Silas put some wooden pegs into his mouth, and began to make holes in the shoe-bottom with an awl and a flat-headed hammer. Hoag glared steadily at the bald pate for a moment, and then, shrugging his shoulders, he stood up. There was a red spot on each of his cheeks, a sullen, thwarted sort of flare in his eyes.
“Well, I'll have to be goin',” he said, winding his pliant whip around his hand. “I see you won't help me build that shoe-factory. I may do it, an' I may not. Thar is another deal I may put the money in, but that's plumb out o' your line. So long.”
The cobbler raised his eyes and muttered an inarticulate something from his peg-filled mouth, and watched Hoag as he went out and unhitched his horse.
“He's one o' the big men o' the county,” Silas mused, “an' yet he don't seem to have the slightest inkling o' what rail justice means. I reckon the almighty dollar has plumb blinded him. He wasn't any more concerned with what I told 'im about that pore darky than if I'd been talkin' about a dead hog. Well, they say he's give up believin' in a God or a future life, an' if he has he's livin' up to his lights, or down to 'em—I don't know which.”