For only a few moments did she sit with the quiet formality of a nurse, who feels how much depends on the repose of her patient. Then she began weeping, moaning, and wringing her hands.
“Mother!” The feeble voice of Willy stilled, instantly, the tempest of feeling. “Mother, kiss me!”
She bent down and kissed him.
“Are you there, mother?” His eyes moved about, with a straining motion.
“Yes, love, here I am.”
“I don’t see you, mother. It’s getting so dark. Oh, mother! mother!” he shouted suddenly, starting up and throwing himself forward upon her bosom—“save me! save me!”
How quickly did the mother clasp her arms around him—how eagerly did she strain him to her bosom! The doctor, fearing the worst consequences, now came forward, and endeavored to release the arms of Mrs. Hammond, but she resisted every attempt to do so.
“I will save you, my son,” she murmured in the ear of the young man. “Your mother will protect you. Oh! if you had never left her side, nothing on earth could have done you harm.”
“He is dead!” I heard the doctor whisper; and a thrill of horror went through me. The words reached the ears of Mr. Hammond, and his groan was one of almost mortal agony.
“Who says he is dead?” came sharply from the lips of the mother, as she pressed the form of her child back upon the bed from which he had sprung to her arms, and looked wildly upon his face. One long scream of horror told of her convictions, and she fell, lifeless, across the body of her dead son!
All in the room believed that Mrs. Hammond had only fainted. But the doctor’s perplexed, troubled countenance, as he ordered her carried into another apartment, and the ghastliness of her face when it was upturned to the light, suggested to every one what proved to be true. Even to her obscured perceptions, the consciousness that her son was dead came with a terrible vividness—so terrible, that it extinguished her life.
Like fire among dry stubble ran the news of this fearful event through Cedarville. The whole town was wild with excitement. The prominent fact, that Willy Hammond had been murdered by Green, whose real profession was known by many, and now declared to all, was on every tongue; but a hundred different and exaggerated stories as to the cause and the particulars of the event were in circulation. By the time preparations to remove the dead bodies of mother and son from the “Sickle and Sheaf” to the residence of Mr. Hammond were completed, hundreds of people, men, women, and children, were assembled around the tavern and many voices were clamorous for Green; while some called out for Judge Lyman, whose name, it thus appeared, had become associated in the minds of the people with the murderous affair. The appearance, in the midst of this excitement, of the two dead bodies, borne forth on settees, did not tend to allay the feverish state of indignation that prevailed. From more than one voice, I heard the words, “Lynch the scoundrel!”