satisfied him, and presently Elizabeth and I were able to return to our breakfast in peace, though neither of us had much appetite for it any more.
“She has escaped from jail!” said my wife in a tone of wonder. “I cannot believe it! How could she manage such a thing?”
“With help, no doubt.” It was not my place to speculate on such matters, and I keep my thoughts to myself. Elizabeth has too many sisters to confide in.
“But who could have helped her?”
I smiled, thinking again of John Sevier. “Perhaps it was Eliza Grace McDowell, my dear. Her family seems to make a practice of it.”
“Oh, Burgess, do be serious!” I don’t know whether Elizabeth took my meaning or not. I did not remind her of the incident. At last she said, “Do you think they will catch her?”
“I hope not,” I said, before I thought better of it. I realized that my reluctance to see the prisoner recaptured was the real reason that I had been unwilling to join the searchers—though I am sure that I would have been of little use to the seasoned hunters and woodsmen who were on her trail. I did not want her found. So much simpler to let the prisoner disappear into the wilderness of Tennessee, as John Sevier once did a generation ago. Then John Boone would not have to dread the grim duty of hanging a woman, and we could end all of the clamoring to young Governor Swain, whose concerns lie elsewhere. Besides, if they caught Frankie Silver, I felt sure that it would go hard on her father and brother, who surely took her away—but it might also cause harm to the person who let her go. Such a trial would divide Morganton into hostile opposing camps, and such a rift would profit nothing. So, guilty or innocent, I wished Mrs. Silver Godspeed in her flight across the mountains, and I prayed that I might never see her again.
Her escape was a nine days’ wonder in our little country town. People seemed to talk of nothing else, and they never tired of speculating on who might be responsible for the escape. I told no one of my conversation with John Boone, and he rode west with a search party, for it was his sworn duty to bring back an escaped prisoner, whatever his private feelings in the matter may have been.
I wonder if any of those searchers wanted to catch the prisoner because they thought she deserved to die, or if they were simply acting on impulse, like hounds who will chase anything that runs, simply because it runs. It was a game of hide-and-seek, with the trackers pitting their skills against the wiles of the elusive prey. I am sure that there was a great deal of shouting and boasting and drinking done by the posse, and that in the end it all seemed such a great sport to them that they forgot the deadly purpose of their chase.
She was not taken easily. Day after day went by with no word from the searchers, and news of the escape spread far beyond the borders of Burke County. Colonel Newland said that even the Raleigh newspaper carried an article about the missing prisoner, and we knew that other lawmen from the neighboring counties had joined in the search. Still, it had been a good many days since her escape, and it seemed likely that she was gone for good.
“Seven days,” Miss Mary announced at dinner one night. “Surely she is out of reach by now. The Tennessee border is four days’ ride at most, is it not?”
The squire gave his daughter a reproving glare. Such things are not talked of before white linen and crystal. “Are you referring to the escaped murderess, my dear?”
“Of course she is, Father,” said Elizabeth. “We can talk of nothing else! We are quite beside ourselves with worry.”
“I don’t think you need worry,” her father replied. “I do not believe that Mrs. Silver will break in to Belvidere and take an ax to us in our beds.”
The Erwin women all stared at him for a moment’s consternation before they burst into laughter. It is the
squire’s way of joking to pretend to misunderstand his wife and children, and then to allow himself to be instructed in the true significance of their remarks.
“Oh, really, Daddy!” said Delia, who is the baby of the family, nearly twenty, and a great pet of her father. “We do not