FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135  
136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   >>   >|  
this posse." "They will be!" shouted a farmer. "Don't you worry about that." "We want to get into some sort of shape," cried Eph. "Shape, hell!" said Hartley Bowlder. There was a hiss and clang and rattle behind him, and a steam whistle shrieked. The crowd divided, and Hartley's sorrel jumped just in time as the westbound accommodation rushed through on its way to Rouen. From the rear platform leaned the sheriff, Horner, waving his hands frantically as he flew by, but no one understood--or cared--what he said, or, in the general excitement, even wondered why he was leaving the scene of his duty at such a time. When the train had dwindled to a dot and disappeared, and the noise of its rush grew faint, the court-house bell was heard ringing, and the mob was piling pell-mell into the village to form on the Square. The judge stood alone on the embankment. "That settles it," he said aloud, gloomily, watching the last figures. He took off his hat and pushed back the thick, white hair from his forehead. "Nothing to do but wait. Might as well go home for that. Blast it!" he exclaimed, impatiently. "I don't want to go there. It's too hard on the little girl. If she hadn't come till next week she'd never have known John Harkless." CHAPTER XI. JOHN BROWN'S BODY All morning horsemen had been galloping through Six-Cross-Roads, sometimes singly, oftener in company. At one-o'clock the last posse passed through on its return to the county-seat, and after that there was a long, complete silence, while the miry corners were undisturbed by a single hoof-beat. No unkempt colt nickered from his musty stall; the sparse young corn that was used to rasp and chuckle greenly stood rigid in the fields. Up the Plattville pike despairingly cackled one old hen, with her wabbling sailor run, smit with a superstitious horror of nothing, in the stillness; she hid herself in the shadow underneath a rickety barn, and her shrieking ceased. Only on the Wimby farm were there signs of life. The old lady who had sent Harkless roses sat by the window all morning and wiped her eyes, watching the horsemen ride by; sometimes they would hail her and tell her there was nothing yet. About two-o'clock, her husband rattled up in a buckboard, and got out the late, and more authentic, Mr. Wimby's shot-gun, which he carefully cleaned and oiled, in spite of its hammerless and quite useless condition, sitting, meanwhile, by the window opposite his w
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135  
136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
window
 

watching

 

morning

 

horsemen

 

Hartley

 
Harkless
 
chuckle
 

greenly

 
sparse
 

unkempt


nickered

 

fields

 
galloping
 

CHAPTER

 
singly
 

oftener

 
silence
 
complete
 

undisturbed

 

corners


Plattville

 

company

 

passed

 

return

 

county

 

single

 

buckboard

 

authentic

 

rattled

 

husband


condition

 
useless
 

sitting

 

opposite

 

hammerless

 
carefully
 

cleaned

 
stillness
 

horror

 
underneath

shadow
 

superstitious

 
cackled
 
despairingly
 

wabbling

 

sailor

 
rickety
 

ceased

 
shrieking
 

exclaimed