tless many an act of valor which has won the world's
applause was precipitated in a degree by desperation and the lack of
an alternative. The appearance of stolidity with which the cluster of
witnesses--those whose testimony was yet to be given as well as those
who had told the little they knew--noted the uncontrolled agitation,
the wild eyes, the hysteric sobs, with which Narcissa Hanway was
ushered into the contracted apartment where the inquest was in
progress, had no correlative calmness of mind or heart. What haphazard
accusation might not result from her fear, or her desire to shield
another, or the mere undisciplined horror of the place and the fact!
When one dreads the sheer possibilities, the extremes of terror are
reached. More than one of the bearded, unkempt, hardy mountaineers,
trudging back and forth in the sheltered space beneath the loft,
steadily chewing their quids of tobacco and eying the rain, would have
fled incontinently, had there been any place to run to out of reach of
the constable, who was particularly brisk to-day, participating in
exercises of so unusual an interest. The girl's brother, standing
beside the door after she had passed within, was unconscious of a
certain keen covert scrutiny of which he was the subject. He had a
square determined face, dark hair, slow gray eyes, and a tall powerful
frame; he held his head downward, his hand on the door, his even teeth
set in the intensity of his effort to distinguish the voices within.
There had been some secret speculation as to whether the man were
altogether unknown to the brother and sister, such deep feeling she
had evinced, such coercion he had exerted to induce her to give her
testimony. Still, the girl was a mere slip of a thing, unused to
horrors; and as to recalcitrant witnesses, they all knew the jail had
a welcome for the silent until such time as they might find a voice.
Nevertheless, though his urgency had been in the stead of the
constable's stronger measures, they eyed him askance as he stood and
sought to listen, with his hand on the door. The old woman turned
around, her arms falling to her sides with a sort of flounce of
triumph, her eyes twinkling beneath the shining spectacles set upon
her brow among the limp ruffles of her thrust-back sunbonnet, a laugh
of satisfaction widening her wrinkled face. "Thar now!" she chuckled,
"Nar'sa jes' set it down she _wouldn't_ testify, an' crossed her heart
an' hoped she'd fall dead fust.