The racket stopped, and the wave sucked back.
Sherburn never said a word--just stood there, looking down.

The stillness was awful creepy and uncomfortable.

Sherburn run his eye slow along the crowd; and wherever it struck the people tried a little to out-gaze him, but they couldn't; they dropped their eyes and looked sneaky.
Then pretty soon Sherburn sort of laughed; not the pleasant kind, but the kind that makes you feel like when you are eating bread that's got sand in it.
Then he says, slow and scornful: "The idea of YOU lynching anybody! It's amusing.

The idea of you thinking you had pluck enough to lynch a MAN! Because you're brave enough to tar and feather poor friendless cast-out women that come along here, did that make you think you had grit enough to lay your hands on a MAN?
Why, a MAN'S safe in the hands of ten thousand of your kind--as long as it's daytime and you're not behind him.
"Do I know you?
I know you clear through was born and raised in the South, and I've lived in the North; so I know the average all around.
The average man's a coward.

In the North he lets anybody walk over him that wants to, and goes home and prays for a humble spirit to bear it.
In the South one man all by himself, has stopped a stage full of men in the daytime, and robbed the lot.