“Lightfoot waited in the bushes with his trusty rifle in hand.  When the two unsuspecting travelers reached a point nearly opposite him he raised his rifle and glanced over its shining barrel and saw that the flight of his bullet would cut the throats of both his persecutors.  He pulled the trigger and the bullet sped to its mark.  Both men plunged to the ground as if they had been smitten by a thunderbolt.  Lightfoot leaped from cover and seized the rearing horses, and mounting one of them while he led the other, headed them down the trail, and in no great hurry, for he knew that the lake was between him and Blodgett and that the latter’s boat was in no condition to hold water.”

It was the swift and deadly execution of Lightfoot which Amos had been imitating, as he presently confessed.

I knew then the power of words—­even foolish words—­over the minds of the young when they are printed and spread abroad.

I remember well the look of the venerable Judge Cady as he pronounced the sentence of death upon Amos Grimshaw.  A ray of sunlight slanting through a window in the late afternoon fell upon his gracious countenance, shining also, with the softer light of his spirit.  Slowly, solemnly, kindly, he spoke the words of doom.  It was his way of saying them that first made me feel the dignity and majesty of the law.  The kind and fatherly tone of his voice put me in mind of that Supremest Court which is above all question and which was swiftly to enter judgment in this matter and in others related to it.

Slowly the crowd moved out of the court room.  Benjamin Grimshaw rose and calmly whispered to his lawyer.  He had not spoken to his son or seemed to notice him since the trial had begun, nor did he now.  Many had shed tears that day, but not he.  Mr. Grimshaw never showed but one emotion—­that of anger.  He was angry now.  His face was hard and stern.  He muttered as he walked out of the court room, his cane briskly beating the floor.  I and others followed him, moved by differing motives.  I was sorry for him and if I had dared I should have told him that.  I was amazed to see how sturdily he stood under this blow—­like a mighty oak in a storm.  The look of him thrilled me—­it suggested that something was going to happen.

The Silent Woman—­as ragged as ever—­was waiting on the steps.  Out went her bony finger as he came down.  He turned and struck at her with his cane and shouted in a shrill voice that rang out like a trumpet in his frenzy: 

“Go ‘way from me.  Take her away, somebody.  I can’t stan’ it.  She’s killin’ me.  Take her away.  Take her away.  Take her away.”

His face turned purple and then white.  He reeled and fell headlong, like a tree severed from its roots, and lay still on the hard, stone pavement.  It seemed as if snow were falling on his face—­it grew so white.  The Silent Woman stood as still as he, pointing at him with her finger, her look unchanged.  People came running toward us.  I lifted the head of Mr. Grimshaw and laid it on my knee.  It felt like the head of the stranger in Rattleroad.  Old Kate bent over and looked at the eyelids of the man, which fluttered faintly and were still.