第167章 Ashborough There's a brave fellow!(3)

Donovan felt a sort of thrill pass through the hand that rested on his arm, and Erica began to walk more quickly than ever.A minute more, and the little byway led them out into the market place.It was lighted with the electric light, and tonight the light was concentrated at one end, the end at which stood the Town Hall.

Instinctively Donovan's eyes were turned at once toward that brightest point and also toward the sound, the subdued roar of the multitude which they had heard on their way.There was another sound, too a man's ringing voice, a stentorian voice which reached them clearly even at that distance.Raeburn stood alone, facing an angry, tumultuous throng, with his back to the closed door of the building and his tawny eyes scanning the mass of hostile faces below.

"Every Englishman has a right to freedom of speech.You shall not rob me or any other man of a right.I have fought for this all my life, and I will fight as long as I've breath.""That shall not be long!" shouted another speaker."Forward, brothers! Down with the infidel! Vengeance, vengeance."The haggard, wild-looking man who had addressed Raeburn the day before at Greyshot now sprang forward ; there was a surging movement in the crowd like wind in a corn field.Donovan and Erica, hurrying forward, saw Raeburn surrounded on every side, forced away from the door, and at length half stunned by a heavy blow from the fanatical leader; then, taken thus at a disadvantage, he was pushed backward.They saw him fall heavily down the stone steps.

With a low cry Erica rushed toward him, breaking away from Donovan and forcing a way through that rough crowd as if by magic.

Donovan, though so much taller and stronger, was longer in reaching the foot of the steps, and when at length he had pushed his way through the thickest part of the throng he was hindered for the haggard-looking man who had been the ringleader in the assault ran into his very arms.He was evidently struck with horror at the result of his mad enterprise and now meditated flight.But Donovan stopped him.

"You must come with me, my friend," he exclaimed, seizing the fanatic by the collar.

Nor did he pause till he had handed him over to a policeman.Then once more he forced a passage through the hushed crowd and at last reached the foot of the steps.He found Erica on the ground with her father's head raised on her knees.He was perfectly unconscious, but it seemed as if his spirit and energy had been transmitted to his child.Erica was giving orders so clearly and authoritatively that Donovan could only marvel at her strength and composure.

"Stand back!" she was saying as he approached."How can he come to while you are shutting out the air? Some one go quickly and fetch a door or a litter.You go, and you."She indicated two or three more respectable-looking men, and they at once obeyed her.She looked relieved to see Donovan.

"Won't you go inside and speak to the people?" she said."I have sent for a doctor.If some one doesn't go soon, they will come out, and then there might be a riot.Tell them if they have any feeling for my father to separate quietly.Don't let them all out upon these people; there is sure to be fighting if they meet."Donovan could not bear to leave her in such a position, but just then a doctor came up, and the police began to drive back the crowd; and since the people were rather awed by what had happened, they dispersed meekly enough.Donovan went into the Town Hall then, and gradually learned what had taken place.It seemed that soon after the beginning of Raeburn's lecture, a large crowd had gathered outside, headed by a man named Drosser, a street preacher, well-known in Ashborough and the neighborhood.This crowd had stormed the doors of the hall and had created such an uproar that it was impossible to proceed with the lecture.The doors had been quite unequal to the immense pressure from without, and Raeburn, foreseeing that they would give way and knowing that, if the insurgents met his audience, there would be serious risk to the lives of many, had insisted on trying to dismiss the crowd without, or, at any rate, to secure some sort of order.Several had offered to go with him, but he had begged the audience to keep still and had gone out alone the crowd being so astonished by this unexpected move that they fell back for a moment before him.Apparently his plan would have succeeded very well had it not been for Drosser's deliberate assault.He had gained a hearing from the people and would probably have dispersed them had he not been borne down by brute force.

It was no easy task to tell the audience what had happened; but Donovan was popular and greatly respected and, thanks to his tact, their wrath, though very great, was restrained.In fact, Raeburn was so well known to disapprove of any sort of violence that Donovan's appeal to them to preserve order for his sake met with a deep, suppressed murmur of assent.When all was safe he hurried back to the hotel where they were glad enough of his services.

Raeburn had recovered his senses for a minute but only to sink almost immediately into another swoon.For many hours this went on; he would partly revive, even speak a few words, and then sink back once more.Every time Erica thought it would end in death, nor could she gather comfort from the looks of either of the doctors or of Donovan.

"This is not the first time I've been knocked down and trampled on," said Raeburn, faintly, in one of his intervals of consciousness, "but it will be the last time."And though the words were spoken with a touch of his native humor and might have borne more than one interpretation, yet they answered painfully to the conviction which lay deep in Erica's heart.

"Then let me send a telegram from the 'Ashborough Times' office,"said Donovan to her in one of the momentary pauses."I have sent for your cousin and Mrs.Craigie and for Brian."For the first time Erica's outward composure gave way.Her mouth began to quiver and her eyes to fill.

"Oh! Thank you," she said; and there was something in her voice that went to Donovan's heart.