When the sheriff and his deputy, at the close of this forenoon session, passed out of the court-house with Tom, there was a rush of people around and in front of them. Men and boys climbed up on wagons, tree stumps, and whatever afforded them a good view of the criminal. For the most part the people were only moved by that heartless curiosity which finds a pleasurable excitement in the sight of other people's woes, but there was also very manifest an increasing resentment toward Tom, and not a little of that human ferocity which is easily awakened in time of excitement and which reminds us of a sort of second cousinship that subsists between a crowd of men and a pack of wolves--or between a pack of men and a crowd of wolves. When Tom found himself at length landed within the friendly prison walls, out of sight and hearing of the unfeeling crowd, he was in the deepest dejection. For what, indeed, that could happen now would be sufficient to turn back such a tide of popular condemnation? Barbara came to him presently with a dinner more relishable than that which the sheriff was accustomed to serve to prisoners, and all the way to the jail idle people had strolled after her; and though no one treated her with disrespect, she could hear them saying, "That's his sister," and their voices were neither sympathetic nor friendly. When she set down the tray on one of the stools in front of Tom, she kept her eyes averted from his, lest he should detect the despondency that she knew herself to be incapable of hiding. On his part, Tom made a feint to eat the food, for Barbara's sake. But after examining first one tid-bit and then another, essaying to nibble a little first at this and then at that, he got up abruptly and left the whole. "'T isn't any use, Barb," he said, huskily. "I can't eat." And Barbara, knowing how much need her brother had for all his self-control, did not trust herself to speak, but took up the tray and went out again, leaving Tom, when the deputy had locked the door, sitting alone on the bench with his head between his hands. XXVII LIGHT IN A DARK PLACE