New York_ The Novel - Edward Rutherfurd [252]
And the crowd did not like it. The crowd did not like it at all.
For now, as by some awful magic, the part of the crowd that could not see down the street seemed to understand from the eyes that could that the children were there. And the crowd began to tremble with rage at the thought that its prey was daring to escape. And the crowd nearest to her started inching forward, a foot at a time, like a snake testing the way with its tongue. And somebody shouted out again, “Kill the nigger children!” while others took up the cry.
And the children heard, and flinched.
Then Hetty realized that there was no one except herself and the big Irishman between the crowd and the children.
Strangely, she understood, the crowd did not really see her. She was in its field of vision, but its focus was on the children. They were nearly all out now. She glanced back. The matron was telling the children to start walking. Quickly, but not too fast. The crowd saw too. A woman’s voice called out: “The niggers is gettin’ away.” At any instant, she could feel it, people would start to break ranks and spill past her.
“Stop!” she cried out. “Would you harm little children?” She raised her arms and held them wide, as if that could stop them. “They are little children.”
The crowd saw her now and fixed its stare upon her. It saw her for what she was, a rich Republican Protestant, their enemy. The huge Irishman beside her was silent, and it suddenly crossed her mind that perhaps he had brought her there so that the crowd would kill her.
Yet just for a moment, the crowd seemed to hesitate. Then the woman’s voice rang out again.
“They’re nigger children, lady. It don’t matter killing them.”
There was a roar of approval. The crowd was edging forward.
“You cannot! You cannot!” Hetty cried desperately.
And then, to her surprise, the Irish giant beside her let out a mighty cry.
“What are you thinking of? Have you no humanity? Has none of you any humanity?”
Hetty did not understand crowds. The crowd, despite the fact they hated her, had hesitated to attack her for one reason only: she was a lady. But the giant beside her was a man. One of their own. And now a traitor, siding with their enemy to rebuke them. With a scream of rage, two women rushed at him. The men were close behind. If they might not have the children, then they’d have him. He was fair game.
His size did him no good at all. A giant is nothing to a crowd. It had him down in no time.
Hetty had never seen a mob attack a man. She did not know its violence and its power. They started with his face, punching, and kicking with their heavy boots. She saw blood, heard splintering bone, then could see nothing at all, as they threw her across the street, and his body disappeared under a rabble of men, stamping with all their strength and weight, again and again and again.
When they broke off, the Irish giant had almost disappeared.
The crowd had entered the orphanage now. There was plenty there for everyone. Food, blankets, beds: the home was stripped bare. But the children, thanks be to God, had been left to walk quickly away.
So Hetty slowly got up, and looked down at the pulped mess that had once been a mighty body with a face, and dragged herself into Fifth Avenue. And there, scarcely knowing what was happening to her, she suddenly felt a pair of strong arms around her and saw her husband’s face. Then she clung to him, as he helped her stagger down to the reservoir and eastward along Fortieth until, at the next avenue, he lifted her into the big carriage that had brought him.
“Thank God you came,” she murmured, “I was looking for you all day.”
“I was looking for you, too.”
“Never leave me again, Frank. Please never leave me.”
“Never again,” he said, with tears in his eyes. “Never, as long as I live.”
When Sean O’Donnell