The Light in the Clearing: A Tale of the North Country in the Time of Silas WrightBacheller, Irving
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The Light in the Clearing: A Tale of the North Country in the Time of Silas Wright
Bacheller, Irving
New York (State) -- Fiction; Wright, Silas, 1795-1847 -- Fiction
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.
"Dead!" she muttered.
Then, as if her work were finished, she turned and made her way through
the crowd and walked slowly down the street. Men stood aside to let her
pass, as if they felt the power of her spirit and feared the touch of
her garments.
Two or three men had run to the house of the nearest doctor. The crowd
thickened. As I sat looking down at the dead face in my lap, a lawyer
who had come out of the court room pressed near me and bent over and
looked at the set eyes of Benjamin Grimshaw and said:
"She floored him at last. I knew she would. He tried not to see her, but
I tell ye that bony old finger of hers burnt a hole in him. He couldn't
stand it. I knew he'd blow up some day under the strain. She got him at
last."
"Who got him?" another asked.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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