CHAPTER XXVIII

RAND AND MOCKET

Tom Mocket, returning to Richmond twenty-four hours after his friend and patron, found it too late that evening to see Lewis and to report the happy winding up of all matters in Williamsburgh.  The next morning he was at the office betimes, but though he waited long, no Lewis appeared.  At last Tom sent a boy to the house on Shockoe, who returned with the statement that Mr. Rand was gone to the Capitol.  “Then I’ll go too,” thought Tom.  “I’ve got nerve as well as he!”

It was the fourth day of the actual trial, and interest was at white heat.  Tom whistled to himself as he crossed the Capitol Square where men blocked the paths or, on the grass beneath the trees, recounted, disputed, and prophesied.  When he reached the building, it was with much difficulty that he effected an entrance, and with more that he at last edged himself into the Hall of the House of Delegates.  Sturdy perseverance and an acquaintance with a doorkeeper, however, can accomplish much, and these finally placed Mocket where, by dint of balancing himself upon an advantageous ledge of masonry, he had a fair view of both participants and spectators.

General William Eaton was being examined.  The throng sat or stood silently attentive, swayed forward as by a wind.  Marshall upon the bench, long and loose-jointed, with a quiet, plain face, was listening with intentness; the opposing counsel sat alert, gathered for the pounce; the prisoner, with a contemptuous smile, regarded the witness, who indeed cut but a poor figure.  The District Attorney’s voice, deliberate and full, asked a question, and General Eaton proceeded to give in detail Colonel Burr’s expression of treasonable intentions.

Mocket, who had at first looked and listened with a thumping heart and a strong feeling that, visible to all, the letter T might be somewhere sewn or branded upon his own person, by degrees grew bolder.  There wasn’t any letter there, that was certain, and a slight sense of personal danger might even become a welcome sauce to such a great affair as this!  His fright vanished, and his ferret eyes began to rove.

There was Adam Gaudylock, still with his musket.  It was a day when men habitually journeyed with pistols in their holsters or a dirk somewhere about them, but Adam carried that musket merely because he loved it—­like a dog or a woman!  Tawny and blue-eyed, light and lithe, indifferent and pleased to see the show, the hunter listened to General Eaton and laughed behind his hand to a fellow woodsman.  “My certie, he’s trained!” thought Tom.  “It’s not much they’ll get from him!”

His eyes left Adam and travelled in search of Lewis Rand, finding him at last where he sat at no great distance from the group of central importance.  His face was turned in Mocket’s direction, and the light from a high window fell upon it.  “He doesn’t see me,” thought Tom to himself.  “Who’s he looking at like that?”