"And as God is my witness, I speak and act not through passion, but from the dictates of conscience."He meant it, Grimes did. And when he set down they was a hush. And then Will, the chairman, begun to call the roll.
I never been much of a person to have bad dreams or nightmares or things like that. But ever since that night in that schoolhouse, if I do have a night-mare, it takes the shape of that roll being called.
Every word was like a spade grating and gritting in damp gravel when a grave is dug. It sounded so to me.
"Samuel Palmour, how do you vote?" that chair-man would say.
Samuel Palmour, or whoever it was, would hist himself to his feet, and he would say something like this:
"Death."
He wouldn't say it joyous. He wouldn't say it mad. He would be pale when he said it, mebby--and mebby trembling. But he would say it like it was a duty he had to do, that couldn't be got out of. That there trial had lasted so long they wasn't hot blood left in nobody jest then--only cold blood, and determination and duty and principle.
"Buck Hightower," says the chairman, "how do you vote?""Death," says Buck; "death for the man. But say, can't we jest LICK the kid and turn him loose?"And so it went, up one side the room and down the other. Grimes had showed 'em all their duty.
Not but what they had intended to do it before Grimes spoke. But he had put it in such a way they seen it was something with even MORE principle to it than they had thought it was before.
"Billy Harden," says the chairman, "how do you vote?" Billy was the last of the bunch. And most had voted fur death. Billy, he opened his mouth and he squared himself away to orate some. But jest as he done so, the door opened and Old Daddy Withers stepped in. He had been gone so long Ihad plumb forgot him. Right behind him was a tall, spare feller, with black eyes and straight iron-gray hair.
"I vote," says Billy Harden, beginning of his speech, "I vote for death. The reason upon which I base--"But Doctor Kirby riz up and interrupted him.
"You are going to kill me," he said. He was pale but he was quiet, and he spoke as calm and steady as he ever done in his life. "You are going to kill me like the crowd of sneaking cowards that you are.
And you ARE such cowards that you've talked two hours about it, instead of doing it. And I'll tell you why you've talked so much: because no ONEof you alone would dare to do it, and every man of you in the end wants to go away thinking that the other fellow had the biggest share in it. And no ONE of you will fire the gun or pull the rope--you'll do it ALL TOGETHER, in a crowd, because each one will want to tell himself he only touched the rope, or that HIS GUN missed.
"I know you, by God!" he shouted, flushing up into a passion--and it brought blood into their faces, too--"I know you right down to your roots, better than you know yourselves."He was losing hold of himself, and roaring like a bull and flinging out taunts that made 'em squirm.
If he wanted the thing over quick, he was taking jest the way to warm 'em up to it. But I don't think he was figgering on anything then, or had any plan up his sleeve. He had made up his mind he was going to die, and he was so mad because he couldn't get in one good lick first that he was nigh crazy. I looked to see him lose all sense in a minute, and rush amongst them guns and end it in a whirl.
But jest as I figgered he was on his tiptoes fur that, and was getting up my own sand, he throwed a look my way. And something sobered him. He stood there digging his finger nails into the palms of his hands fur a minute, to get himself back. And when he spoke he was sort of husky.
"That boy there," he says. And then he stops and kind of chokes up. And in a minute he was begging fur me. He tells 'em I wasn't mixed up in nothing. He wouldn't of done it fur himself, but he begged fur me. Nobody had paid much attention to me from the first, except Buck High-tower had put in a good word fur me. But some-how the doctor had got the crowd listening to him agin, and they all looked at me. It got next to me.
I seen by the way they was looking, and I felt it in the air, that they was going to let me off.
But Doctor Kirby, he had always been my friend.
It made me sore fur to see him thinking I wasn't with him. So I says:
"You better can that line of talk. They don't get you without they get me, too. You orter know I ain't a quitter. You give me a pain."And the doctor and me stood and looked at each other fur a minute. He grinned at me, and all of a sudden we was neither one of us much giving a whoop, fur it had come to us both at oncet what awful good friends we was with each other.
But jest then they come a slow, easy-going sort of a voice from the back part of the room.
That feller that had come in along with Old Daddy Withers come sauntering down the middle aisle, fumbling in his coat pocket, and speaking as he come.
"I've been hearing a great deal of talk about killing people in the last few minutes," he says.
Everybody rubbered at him.
