Even before he reached the gates of the carriage-drive opening upon the Minster lawn, Reuben Tracy encountered some men whom he knew, and gathered that the people in the street outside were in the main peaceful on-lookers, who did not understand very clearly what was going on, and disapproved of the proceedings as far as they comprehended them. There was a crowd inside the grounds, he was told, made up in part of men who were out of work, but composed still more largely, it seemed, of boys and young hoodlums generally, who were improving the pretext to indulge in horseplay. There was a report that some sort of deputation had gone up on the doorstep and rung the bell, with a view to making some remarks to the occupants of the house; but that they had failed to get any answer, and certainly the whole front of the residence was black as night.
Reuben easily obtained the consent of several of these citizens to follow him, and, as they went on, the number swelled to ten or a dozen. Doubtless many more could have been incorporated in the impromptu procession had it not been so hopelessly dark.
The lawyer led his friends through the gate, and began pushing his way up the gravelled path through the crowd. No special opposition was offered to his progress, for the air was so full of snow now that only those immediately affected knew anything about it. Although the path was fairly thronged, nobody seemed to have any idea why he was standing there. Those who spoke appeared in the main to regard the matter as a joke, the point of which was growing more and more obscure. Except for some sporadic horn-blowing and hooting nearer to the house, the activity of the assemblage was confined to a handful of boys, who mustered among them two or three kerosene oil torches treasured from the last Presidential campaign, and a grotesque jack-o’-lantem made of a pumpkin and elevated on a broom-stick. These urchins were running about among the little groups of bystanders, knocking off one another’s caps, shouting prodigiously, and having a good time.
As Reuben and those accompanying him approached the house, some of these lads raised the cry of “Here’s the coppers!” and the crowd at this seemed to close up with a simultaneous movement, while a murmur ran across its surface like the wind over a field of corn. This sound was one less of menace or even excitement than of gratification that at last something was going to happen.
One of the boys with a torch, in the true spirit of his generation, placed himself in front of Reuben and marched with mock gravity at the head of the advancing group. This, drolly enough, lent the movement a semblance of authority, or at least of significance, before which the men more readily than ever gave way. At this the other boys with the torches and jack-o’-lantem fell into line at the rear of Tracy’s immediate supporters, and they in turn were followed by the throng generally. Thus whimsically escorted, Reuben reached the front steps of the mansion.
A more compact and apparently homogeneous cluster of men stood here, some of them even on the steps, and dark and indistinct as everything was, Reuben leaped to the conclusion that these were the men at least visibly responsible for this strange gathering. Presumably they were taken by surprise at his appearance with such a following. At any rate, they, too, offered no concerted resistance, and he mounted to the platform of the steps without difficulty. Then he turned and whispered to a friend to have the boys with the torches also come up. This was a suggestion gladly obeyed, not least of all by the boy with the low-comedy pumpkin, whose illumination created a good-natured laugh.
Tracy stood now, bareheaded in the falling snow, facing the throng. The gathering of the lights about him indicated to everybody in the grounds that the aimless demonstration had finally assumed some kind of form. A general forward movement was the first result. Then there were admonitory shouts here and there, under the influence of which the horn-blowing gradually ceased, and Tracy’s name was passed from mouth to mouth until its mention took on almost the character of a personal cheer on the outskirts of the crowd. In answer to this two or three hostile interrogations or comments were bawled out, but the throng did not favor these, and so there fell a silence which invited Reuben to speak.
“My friends,” he began, and then stopped because he had not pitched his voice high enough, and a whole semicircle of cries of “louder!” rose from the darkness of the central lawn.
“He’s afraid of waking the fine ladies,” called out an anonymous voice.
“Shut up, Tracy, and let the pumpkin talk,” was another shout.
“Begorrah, it’s the pumpkin that is talkin’ now!” cried a shrill third voice, and at this there was a ripple of laughter.
“My friends,” began Reuben, in a louder tone, this time without immediate interruption, “although I don’t know precisely why you have gathered here at so much discomfort to yourselves, I have some things to say to you which I think you will regard as important. I have not seen the persons who live in this house since Tuesday, but while I can easily understand that your coming here to-night might otherwise cause them some anxiety, I am sure that they, when they come to understand it, will be as glad as I am that you are here, and that I am given this opportunity of speaking for them to you. If you had not taken this notion of coming here tonight, I should have, in a day or two, asked you to meet me somewhere else, in a more convenient place, to talk matters over.
“First of all let me tell you that the works are going to be opened promptly, certainly the furnaces, and unless I am very much mistaken about the law, the rolling mills too. I give you my word for that, as the legal representative of two of these women.”
“Yes; they’ll be opened with the Frenchmen!” came a swift answering shout.
“Or will you get Chinamen?” cried another, amid derisive laughter.
Reuben responded in his clearest tones: “No man who belongs to Thessaly shall be crowded out by a newcomer. I give you my word for that, too.”
Some scattered cheers broke out at this announcement, which promised for the instant to become general, and then were hushed down by the prevalent anxiety to hear more. In this momentary interval Reuben caught the sound of a window being cautiously raised immediately above the front door, and guessed with a little flutter of the heart who this new auditor might be.
“Secondly,” he went on, “you ought to be told the truth about the shutting down of the furnaces and the lockout. These women were not at all responsible for either action. I know of my own knowledge that both things caused them genuine grief, and that they were shocked beyond measure at the proposal to bring outside workmen into the town to undersell and drive away their own neighbors and fellow-townsmen. I want you to realize this, because otherwise you would do a wrong in your minds to these good women who belong to Thessaly, who are as fond of our village and its people as any other soul within its borders, and who, for their own sake as well as that of Stephen Minster’s memory, deserve respect and liking at your hands.
“I may tell you frankly that they were misled and deceived by agents, in whom, mistakenly enough, they trusted, into temporarily giving power to these unworthy men. The result was a series of steps which they deplored, but did not know how to stop. A few days ago I was called into the case to see what could be done toward undoing the mischief from which they, and you, and the townspeople generally, suffer. Since then I have been hard at work both in court and out of it, and I believe I can say with authority that the attempt to plunder the Minster estate and to impoverish you will be beaten all along the line.”
This time the outburst of cheering was spontaneous and prolonged. When it died away, some voice called out, “Three cheers for the ladies!” and these were given, too, not without laughter at the jack-o’-lantem boy, who waved his pumpkin vigorously.
“One word more,” called out Tracy, “and I hope you will take in good part what I am going to say. When I made my way up through the grounds, I was struck by the fact that nobody seemed to know just why he had come here. I gather now that word was passed around during the day that there would be a crowd here, and that something, nobody understood just what, would be done after they got here. I do not know who started the idea, or who circulated the word. It might be worth your while to find out. Meanwhile, don’t you agree with me that it is an unsatisfactory and uncivil way of going at the thing? This is a free country, but just because it is free, we ought to feel the more bound to respect one another’s rights. There are countries in which, I dare say, if I were a citizen, or rather a subject, I might feel it my duty to head a mob or join a riot. But here there ought to be no mob; there should be no room for even thought of a riot. Our very strength lies in the idea that we are our own policemen—our own soldiery. I say this not because one in a hundred of you meant any special harm in coming here, but because the notion of coming itself was not American. Beware of men who suggest that kind of thing. Beware of men who preach the theory that because you are pudd............