The calm,
unquestioning assumption that no one would presume to stop him, was a
moral force which paralyzed the arm of the most reckless ruffian in
the crowd. And so, checking his horse when he would have gone faster,
his features as composed as if he were sitting in the Senate, and his
bearing as cool and matter of course as if he were on a promenade, he
rode through the mob, and had passed out of musket shot by the time
the demoralized ruffians had begun to accuse each other of cowardice,
and each one to explain what he would have done if he had been in
somebody else's place, or would do again.
CHAPTER TWENTIETH
TWO CRITICAL INTERVIEWS
The news of the riot at Great Barrington, brought by Sedgwick, excited
a ferment of terror among the gentlemen's families in Stockbridge.
Later in the day when the report got around that the mob intended to
visit the latter place, and treat it in like manner, there was little
less than a panic. The real facts of the Great Barrington outrages,
quite bad enough in themselves, had been exaggerated ten-fold by
rumor, and it was believed that the town was in flames and the streets
full of murder and rapine. Some already began to barricade their
doors, in preparation for the worst, while others who had horses and
vehicles prepared to convey a part at least of their families and
goods out of reach of the marauders.
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