I'm not sure I understand your question, but I assume you
are talking about the group of citizens who attempt to release Tom Robinson from the
jail in Chapter 15 of To Kill a
Mockingbird.
Atticus is warned about this
possibility at the beginning of the chapter when a group of concerned neighbors visits
him at his house. Jem and Scout only hear part of the conversation, but they realize it
is something serious since
In Maycomb, grown men stood outside in the front
yard for only two reasons: death and politics. I wondered who had
died.
Link Deas tells Atticus
that it is " 'that Old Sarum bunch I'm worried about.' " Later, inside, Atticus mentions
the Ku Klux Klan, and Scout seems to know a little about the group from a previous
altercation in Maycomb. Scout seems mostly clueless about the earlier meeting, but Jem
tells her that " 'I'm scared.' " When the children meet up with Atticus at the jail the
next evening, she sees that most of them are "strangers"--"cold-natured" and dressed in
overalls. But she does recognize Mr. Cunningham--Walter Cunningham's father. She knows
that most of the Cunninghams are farmers who live in the country outside the city
limits. She innocently engages him in a conversation, and the men eventually leave. She
has no idea that they are a lynch mob bent on freeing (and then probably hanging) Tom
Robinson, and that her little talk with Cunningham may have saved Atticus from taking a
beating--and Tom's life as well.
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