command—a voice that all the three towns were accustomed to obey.
Unnoticed the open automobile of John Boland, moving slowly down the street, had become imbedded like an island amid the eddies of humanity, with its occupants perforce amazed spectators of what was taking place. The magnate was standing up now beside his driver indignantly erect.
"What are you about, my friends and neighbors, fellow townsmen!" he shouted, words fair enough but with a timbre of rebuke in them before which the maddest paused. "Do you want to smirch the reputation of the whole country?" Mr. Boland's reproach was keen. "Do you want to dignify this scalawag's hypocritical claims?
"If he has unsettled any titles in his wicked and foolish talk this afternoon, hanging him wouldn't quiet them. Only the courts can do that—and they will do it, my friends, never fear. Have faith in the law! Let us show our right to the protection of law by showing our respect for the law."
Harrington had checked them; but Mr. Boland shamed them. By long habit, his townspeople saw as he wished them to see.
For five minutes his reproofs and reproaches flowed on, until the heads of the leaders were bowed like naughty children.
Henry, caught with the rope about his neck, felt suddenly the biggest fool of all. He flung the noose from him quickly and turned upon Hornblower. "Go, you muck!" he said sternly. "And go fast!"
But some dregs of manliness had been stirred up from the bottom of Hornblower's nature.
