forty-four, pushed his
way through them--his face pale, his fine mouth set firm and close,
and the splendid courage of many generations of Conways shining in
his eyes.

"_Stand back!_--" and he said it in the old commanding way--the old
way which courage has ever had in the crises of the world.

"O Marse Ned!--I knowed you'd come!"

He had cut the rope and the old woman sat on the ground clasping his
feet.

For a moment he stood over her, his pale calm face showing the
splendor of determination in the glory of his manhood restored. For a
moment the very beauty of it stopped them--this man, this former sot
and drunkard, this old soldier arising from the ashes of his buried
past, a beautiful statue of courage cut out of the marble of manhood.
The moral beauty of it--this man defending with his life the old
negro--struck even through the swine of them.

They ceased, and a silence fell, so painful that it hurt in its very
uncanniness.

Then Edward Conway said very clearly, very slowly, but with a fitful
nervous ring in his voice: "Go back to your homes! Would you hang
this poor old woman without a trial? Can you not see that she has
lost her mind and is not responsible for her acts? Let the law
decide. Shall not her life of unselfishness and good deeds be put
against this one insane act of her old age? Go back to your homes!
Some of you are my friends, some my neighbors--I ask you for her but
a fair trial before the law."

They listened for a moment and then burst into jeers, hoots, and
hisses:

"Hang her, now! That's the way all lawyers talk!"

And one shouted above the rest: "He's put up a plea of insanity
a-ready. Hang her, now!"

Edward Conway flashed hot through his paleness and he placed himself
before the bowed and moaning form while the crowd in front of him
surged and shouted and called for a rope.

He felt some one touch his arm and turned to find the sheriff by his
side--one of those disreputables who infested the South after the
war, holding office by the votes of the negroes.

"Better let 'em have her,--it ain't worth the while. You'll hafter
kill, or be killed."

"You scallawag!" said Conway, now purple with anger--"is that the way
you respect your sworn oath? And you have been here and seen all this
and not raised your hand?"

"Do you think I'm fool enuff to tackle that crowd of hillbillies?
They've got the devil in them--fur they've got a devil leadin'
'em--Jud Carpenter. Better let 'em