"We got to do our duty, ain't we? That's the law, and there
ain't no way gittin' round it. And if we make mistakes, what of it?
We've got to make mistakes sometimes, or we wouldn't catch half of 'em.
The old skeesiks ought to be glad to git free. See?"
Suddenly there came to my mind the realization of the days that were to
follow and all that they would bring to him of shame. I thought of the
cold glance of his neighbors, the frightened stare of the children ready
to run at the approach of the old jail-bird, the coarse familiarity of
the tavern lounger. Then the cruelty of it all rose before me. Who would
recompense him for the indignities he had suffered--the deadly chill of
the steel clamps; the long days of suspense; the bitterness of the first
disagreement; the foul air of the inferno, made doubly foul by close
crowding of filthy bodies, inexpressibly horrible to one who had
breathed all his life the cool, pure air of the open with only the big
clean trees for his comrades?
And if at last his neighbors should take pity upon him and drive out the
men who had wrecked his old age, and he should wander once more up the
brook with his rod over his shoulder, the faithful dog at his heels, and
a line of the old song still alive in his heart, what about those eleven
months and ten days of which the man-law had robbed him?
O mighty machine! O benign, munificent law! Law of a people who boast of
mercy and truth and equal rights and justice to all.
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