It was only for a short time that the wounded man lay as one dead. His
consciousness gradually returned; his eyelids fluttered and opened
slowly; he gazed about with a dazed and fluctuating attention, while he
still remained, gasping and bleeding, upon the ground. Then by a mighty
effort he rallied his faculties; with the recognition of his own lapsed
identity, his normal expression returned to the quivering features, in
lieu of the pallid, absent, alien look they had worn. This was Eli Strobe
again; badly shaken, but still Eli Strobe. He struggled to his feet, and,
tremulous and silent, he took his way down the path toward his home. A
few officious friends strove to assist him as he went, and they kept pace
with his tottering gait. Others lingered at the forge, looking vaguely
after him, and then at Teck Jepson, who was on the crest of the hill,
under the broad spread of the oak boughs, still mounted, and gazing back
upon the scene. The mare, so suddenly checked in the race, was restive,
and impatiently pawed and tossed her head, then reared and plunged as
the rider turned back. More than once she bolted and tried to run, the
recollection of the race so abruptly cut short still rousing her spirit
and vibrating in her strong muscles. The curb held her to a slow gait,
but her ears were laid back, giving her a vixenish look, and her full eye
rolled as she came mincing sideways down the hill, ready to jump at any
moment, her whole aspect oddly incongruous with the pale, anxious face of
the rider.
It was he, doubtless, that first of all the crowd saw a light figure,
swift and lithe, running at full speed, albeit the hill was rugged and
steep, to meet the wounded man,—now disappearing amongst the laurel, and
again flying along an open, level stretch; her curling hair floating in
the wind, her eyes dilated, her face pallid, her breath coming in quick
gasps. She had seen it all from the porch, Jepson thought. She must know
that he was not to blame. He drew a long breath of relief, and urged the
mare down the hill toward the men. He was near enough to hear her words,
as she dashed in amongst them.
“Leave him be,” she said, with didactic composure. “I be goin’ ter lead
him home. I’ll keer fur him.”
She offered to take the arm that the blacksmith held.
“Don’t ye know, Marcelly, ez I be a heap stronger ’n ye?” remonstrated
Clem Sanders.
“Naw; Marcelly’ll take keer o’ me. Whar’s Marcelly?” piped out Eli Strobe
in a weak voice. “Whar’s Marcelly? Marcelly?” he reiterated, as if he
clung to the familiar name like a landmark amidst some strangely wrought
chaos,—“Marcelly?”
He leaned upon her arm, and he turned toward her now and then with an
uncertain look in his eye. “Marcelly?” he said, with the tone of one
suddenly awakened.
“Hyar me,” her soft voice responded.
The blank stare in his face gave way to an evident satisfaction. He
nodded once or twice, and trudged on.
Presently—once more an abrupt pause. “Marcelly?” again with a poignant
uncertainty and interrogation. And again “Hyar me,” in dulcet, reassuring
tones.
She could even conjure a smile into her pale face and a glancing lustre
into her distended eyes, while he looked unsteadily and doubtfully at
her. But when he began to plod on once more, the blood dripping from the
cut in his head down upon his dust-grimed clothes, muttering now and
again “Marcelly?” as if this were some cabalistic phrase, hard to grasp,
and when once lost never to be found again, a vague terror overspread
her features and shone in her wild and excited eyes. Once or twice she
turned, and looked an appealing, piteous inquiry at the men who walked
beside her, a blank, dull surprise on their faces.
When Isabel, who had followed her sister more slowly because of the
obstacles the sharp stones and briers furnished her bare, sunburnt feet,
joined them, he stretched out his hand gropingly, and laid it on her
head. “Ye air—Is’bel!” he declared, with an evident effort of recognition.
“Laws-a-massy, yes,” retorted the pert maiden. “I wouldn’t be nobody else
fur nuthin’.”
He kept his hand on her head as she walked beside him, albeit she
remonstrated that he pulled her scalp backward; and as he went he
muttered, “Marcelly—Is’bel,” and again, “Marcelly—Is’bel.”
It seemed a long time before they reached the bars of the fence, and went
down the broad turn-row of the field, through the green and glistening
Indian corn, to the door-yard of the little cabin.
One might feel in these unshaded and loamy slopes the full richness of
the expending spirit of the summer sun, the responsive climaxing ripeness
of the herbage of the earth. So broad, so glossy, were the great leaves;
so full of vigor and grace, so definite and erect, the tall and stalwart
stalks! And how somnolently melodious, how charged with languorous
post-meridian sentiment, was the song of the cicada that issued forth! A
lizard, swift and noiseless, slipped across the path, his fine yet dull
colors showing in the light. The shadows of the chestnut-tree at the
gate seemed black with all this yellow glare. A cat slept on the rickety
gate-post, despite the enmity of the dog of the “frequent visitor,” who
had spent his limited energies in barking and bounding about it, and
now sat and besieged it in silent patience and with a lolling tongue.
The vines were fluttering about the porch; the passage between the two
rooms was dark and cool. Teck Jepson, following, watched the group
disappear within the door. Then he dismounted, and hitched the mare to
the gate-post; the dog of the “frequent visitor” relaxed his vigilance to
greet the new-comer with an amity that expressed all the compliments of
the season. Jepson gave him no notice; but the mare shied violently and
backed her ears as he leaped about her, and the cat on the gate-post took
advantage of the opportunity, and ran up the chestnut-tree.
Jepson hesitated; he started slowly along the path amongst the luxuriant
grass and weeds, where a coterie of turkeys and ducks were pecking about;
then he turned back, and stood leaning with one arm upon the gate-post,
his hat drawn down over a moody, anxious brow, now looking meditatively
at the little house, as silent and as solemn as the vast dark mountain
behind it, and again vaguely glancing toward the forge, where he could
see the gossips clustering around the door, the huddled horses at the
rack, the slow ruminative oxen unyoked and lying about in the clearing,
and here and there a cumbrous white-covered wagon. Above were the great
cliffs, beginning to show a sunset glow; and now and then might be
discerned in the forest the pathway of the invisible wind in the fainter
tints of the reverse side of the leaves, upturned under even this light
step, and marking a narrow line amongst the dense and dark foliage, as it
stole down the slopes.
Suddenly, men silent and with grave faces came out of the house. His
heart gave a great throb—their faces were so like those that men bore at
the little rural funerals that had hitherto formed, in his experience,
the chief expression of the majesty of death, and the more terrible
irrevocability of opportunity,—their manner so like the cumbrous, awkward
show of respect and sympathy for the mourners. It seemed strange to him
that he should note at that moment—so vagrant are our thoughts, so little
held in leash by the will—how still the mountain stood, how fairly the
sun shone, how freshly blew the wind, unmindful, unmindful! The soul is
the alien on the earth, and the earth heeds not the in-coming of this
strange essence, nor the out-going. A strong trembling fell upon every
fibre. He looked suddenly gaunt as he strained forward, whispering with
pale lips, “Dead? Dead?”
Their eyes with one accord rested upon him. Clem Sanders slowly shook his
head; then turned to Bassett, as if doubtful nevertheless, and desiring
confirmation. Once more Jepson’s dry lips framed the word “Dead?” but no
sound came.
“Naw,” said Bassett, “not ez ye mought say dead—but”—He paused, and shook
his head.
“Naw, he ain’t dead,” said Dake hastily; “he may be like ter die, fur all
I know. He be out’n his head, an’ yit he ain’t out’n his head. I never
hear sech talk.” Then speaking to Bassett he added, “Ye mought tell Teck
a leetle quicker, knowin’ ez he hev got ter answer fur it.”
Jepson turned, with a flush and a flash of the eye. “Ye ’low ez I be
a-keerin’ fur that—the answerin’ fur it! Naw, sir! It’s the doin’ o’
sech ez be a-killin’ me. I wouldn’t hev done it! I wouldn’t hev done
it!” He struck his hands despairingly together above his head. Then
his consciousness of their entertained eyes, which expressed a sort of
sub-acute unrealized pleasure in the painful excitement, asserted itself,
and he leaned passively against the post, silent and unresponsive when
they spoke; and presently they all passed through the gate, along the
turn-row and up the slope to the forge, to detail the news to the waiting
crowd, and hear in turn the speculations elicited.
He stood as still as if he had turned to stone, his elbow on the post,
the mare’s graceful head close to the broad brim of his hat, the dog of
the “frequent visitor,” an animal of facile allegiance, at his heavily
booted and spurred feet; he did not stir even when he saw the door open
and shut slowly, and Marcella, still pale-faced and large-eyed, emerge
upon the porch. She stood, evidently preoccupied, for a moment amidst the
luxuriant jack-bean blossoms, purple and white, that overran the rickety
little structure. Then, although her eyes had rested on him some little
time, she seemed suddenly to perceive him. He could not interpret the
expression on her face. Her light figure was poised for a moment, as if
she were uncertain whether she might advance or disappear. Then she came
to the verge of the porch, leaning forward and lifting the blossoming
tendrils that she might look through at him. She stretched forth her hand
and beckoned him. His blood gave a great bound in his veins. He felt the
hot color in his cheek. His heart was beating so wildly, so heavily, that
he could not hear the rustle of the lush grass as his quick strides bore
him across the yard, or the abrupt and frantic outcry of the frightened
poultry scuttling away. There were unwonted tears in his eyes; he could
have wept in glad humility for the joy of her generosity. He hastily
stretched forth his hand to clasp hers which held the vine, but she
withdrew it abruptly, and he only clasped the vines, warm from the touch
of her hand. As he looked up at her she looked down at him, inscrutably.
“What war ye a-waitin’ thar fur?” she demanded in a low voice, and with
an anxious glance toward the window close at hand.
“Ter know ef thar be ennything I kin do fur ye,” he said.
She looked away at the refulgent golden-red glow of sunset-tide, that
filled all the air over the wooded valley and the mountain above, till it
touched the serene and colorless east.
Then she said slowly, “Yes,—ye kin do suthin’ fur me.” Her eyes met his.
“Go up ter the mounting—an’ kem back no mo’!” Her voice was intense and
low. Her straight, defiant brows were knitted; her eyes, once so soft,
had a fierce glitter. “I never want ter see yer face agin whilst I live.”
“Marcelly!” he faltered, amazed.
“Go up ter the mounting!” she reiterated. “An’ when, mebbe, ez the time
goes, ye ’low I mought be changin’ my mind, remember I tuk the trouble
ter call ye hyar, an’ tell ye thar never war a woman ez hated a man like
I hate you-uns. Some o’ ’em hated one another in the Bible, didn’t they?
Study ’bout’n ’em. Fur none o’ ’em hated like me!”
“Marcelly!” he cried again, pleadingly. “I never done it a-purpose.”
She let her hands fall on either side with a gesture of indifference. “Ye
mought ez well.”
She knew her power. She saw his pain, and she rejoiced in the retributive
pangs.
“I war all day a-tryin’ ter holp him in the ’lection,” he protested. “I
did everything I could fur him. ’Twar his fault,—an’ ef ye seen it ye air
’bleeged ter know it.”
She looked at him with disdainful eyes. “Mought save yerse’f from the
court that-a-way, moughtn’t ye? But _ye_ won’t hanker fur Sol’mon ter try
_yer_ case, will ye?”
Her face was suddenly smitten with a ghastly look, as she realized what
that possible future for him involved for her father.
“Marcelly!” he cried, in pity for her, divining her thought.
She recovered in a moment. She bore a stanch heart within her.
“Go up ter the mounting!” She lifted her hand, and pointed through the
flowers to the stern fastnesses against the sky. “An’ ef I could hev it
so by sayin’ ‘Go out’n the world,’ I’d say it!”
She turned from the vines,—a light step, the flutter of a garment, the
cautious closing of a door, and she was gone.
He waited for a time, believing that she would relent; she could but
come back with some word of mercy, or pardon, or cheer for him. He
still held the vines aside, and looked through into the open passage of
the house, fearful that she might come forth and think him gone, not
seeing him here. It was strangely still; presently a rooster, bronze and
red and yellow, sprang upon the puncheons of the passage, and muttering
inarticulately to himself strutted back and forth, his claws ploddingly
audible. And now he was gone. Upon the post of the porch, close at hand,
a tree-toad began to shrill. Jepson saw the creature after a little,—a
dull greenish-brown color against the weathered gray of the unpainted
wood. How acute his senses were! He was conscious of noticing the curious
climbing feet of the tiny reptile, as he stood. Women after a time came
to the house with baskets on their arms, containing infallible domestic
remedies or bundles, hoping to supply some household deficiency. They
looked curiously at him; two or three made a motion as if they would
speak, then desisted, and went their way. He cared nothing for his pale
and agitated face, his wild, eager eyes. His pride seemed spent. He was
glad they had seen him. They would tell her he waited without. And surely
she would then come with some word to salve the wounds she had dealt. He
would be grateful for so little. He could wait so long.
Not so long as he fancied. There came through the window the sound of an
unfamiliar voice, he thought at first, strangely mouthing, and presently
rising into a dolorous cry. He listened, trembling guiltily. It was Eli
Strobe’s voice. And when he realized this he could hear no more,—his
fortitude was overtaxed. He could wait for no reward, within the sound of
those tones.
He turned, strode swiftly to the gate, flung himself upon the restive
mare, and the quick thud of her hoofs along the beaten ways of the
turn-row announced his departure to those within. He was going up the
mountain, as she had bidden him. He was going—he cared not where—to the
mountains as instinctively as a bird might seek the woods.
They called to him, as he passed the forge, for news of Eli Strobe. He
shook his head; he had no news to give. The votes had been counted, and
the local politicians, even in this hour of stress, did not fail to
communicate the fact, and one or two triumphant souls shouted to him,
as he spurred away, that Eli Strobe was reëlected. He did not slacken
his speed, for all the rough road, nor draw rein in fording the plunging
torrent. The mare’s neck was vainly downstretched toward the limpid
swiftness; its very breath, the dank perfumes of its banks, indescribably
refreshing at the end of the sultry day. The sun was slowly withdrawing
its fervid presence. The wind rode abreast up and up the mountain. Jepson
seemed to go to meet the night, for the shadows trooped from the east,
and only the lengthening miles of valley and steeps behind him were
pensively splendid in the rich afterglow of the prodigal day; to meet the
night, heralded in the melancholy gloom under the pines, in the vague,
indefinable pain with which we loose our hold on each successive day, in
the sense of quiet and silence lacking in the gorgeous, albeit noiseless,
pageant of sunset-tide; to meet the night, with its pensive presentiments
of sorrow, its prophetic intimation of some longer space of null and dark
futurity. The mare climbed the rugged ways now with a freshened will.
Home, that even the animals cherish, lay at the end of the road, and she
began to recognize her rider’s intention thither. As she threaded the
tangles of the laurel, a faint, blood-curdling sound smote her quick
senses. A wolf was howling afar off in these primeval fastnesses. She
snorted as she went, and trembled. A star was at the zenith. A great
fir seemed to touch it with the dark, slender line of its spire. An
open, rocky space, and Jepson could see the dark western mountains, all
glooming, the sunset faded out save for a lingering red streak along the
horizon,—a dull and dusky tint in the closing obscurity. Below, mists
were a-stalking down the valley ways, spectral in the vague light that
barely made them visible. They claimed that weird and ghostly hour; and
now and then one peered out from amongst the crags hard by, and drew back
aghast, it might seem, at the sight of a human being in these preëmptions
of solitude, where it should meet only its own disembodied kindred.
The mare shied from them with dilated eyes, and chafed at the bit, and
plunged and fretted because of the momentary pause.
Jepson marked, far as it was, the lights in the depression where
Broomsedge lay,—like a skein of fireflies,—and he gazed down with a
pained and throbbing heart, a troublous remorse and a contradictory
sense of self-exculpation, a poignant sympathy with Marcella, and,
nevertheless, a pulsing, sensitive resentment. “’Twar a accident,—nuthin’
but a accident,” he muttered to himself. And then he bit his lip,
remembering her caustic jeer of utilizing this interpretation. Once more
the howl of the wolf, strangely nearer than before.
“How them critters kin travel!” he said.
Then even his strong hand had much ado to hold the mare, snorting and
plunging, and pushing now through the laurel, now amidst the gaunt and
sterile cliffs on the toilsome homeward way, whether he would or no. The
rocks echoed her hoof-beats; she seemed to the listening ear the first
of a file of horse,—a phantom file, for here and there, where the road
was open, and the dull light still showed its curves, it was visibly
vacant, for all the measured pace that sounded between the crags. How
lonely were these great rocks in the wilderness and the vast silences!
With what precipitate avidity they caught at a sound, repeating it from
one to another, as if it had some strange significance, some prophecy,
perchance, that they should hoard against its fulfillment. Of all
the forms of inanimate nature, they alone seemed to him sentient in
some sort; and appealing from their isolation, they alone sought to
communicate with creatures endowed with a motor life, through those
mysteries of the elastic air, set vibrating with a word.
“Marcelly!” he cried out, with some wild desire to hear the wilderness
voice her name. The whole world seemed to respond with a subdued acclaim.
“Marcelly!” the mellow tone rang from the heights above. “Marcelly!” the
tender echoes of the valley replied. And now a crystalline fine vibration
from the upper atmosphere, “Marcelly!” as if the magic word were spoken
in the strange scenes of that lucent and glittering star.
He recovered in a moment his normal stolidity. He would have hushed,
if he could, the voices he had summoned. The mare quickened her pace
anew. As he emerged from the densities of the wilderness into the high
vantage-ground of Bowles’s clearing, the vast splendor of the thickly
instarred, moonless sky was before him,—so far and foreign it was, so
dark the earth lay beneath, so drear. And he hardly cared that the dull
orange glow coming from the notch was the light of his hearth-stone,
although the young mare whickered gleefully at the sight, and went up
the long, steep hill at a prancing pace, and with sundry plunges that
threatened to unseat her practiced rider.
He took the saddle from her back as soon as he dismounted,—none too
quickly, for she instantly rolled over upon the ground, her iron-shod
feet awkwardly waving in the air. Then, as she gathered herself up with a
snort of satisfaction, she set out for the barn and the water-trough with
a capable air, evidently used to serving her own supper and making her
own bed.
As Jepson entered the firelit room, Ben Bowles, sitting beside the
hearth, his elbows on his knees, his pipe in his mouth, roused himself
from a sort of lethargy of idleness, and a slow smile began to make more
distinctly indented the many wrinkles around his mouth and hay-colored
beard. His mild eyes shone with such pleasure as so definite a clod might
be presumed to feel, but he glanced dubiously at his wife before he
ventured to speak.
“Air that you-uns, Teck? Powerful glad ter see ye back hyar,” he said
cordially.
“I ain’t company enough fur him, Teck,” said Mrs. Bowles, with an
assertive smile, displaying all her fine teeth.
“Laws-a-massy, jes’ listen at M’ria, now!” Her husband gallantly scouted
the idea, but he looked somewhat deprecatory of having laid himself
liable to this interpretation.
Jepson glanced about him, heedless of both.
“Whar’s the chill’n?” he demanded. “Gone ter bed?”
“Whar ye reckon?” retorted Mrs. Bowles, with a flash of her bead-like
eyes. “Ye s’pose I hev made sassingers or minch-meat out’n ’em?”
“Ye air ekal ter it,” her brother-in-law ruthlessly declared.
The mild Ben Bowles deserved, perhaps, a better fate than the continual
futility of his efforts to preserve the peace about him. So much tact, so
perfected by practice, seemed wasted here.
“Ha, ha!” He forced a laugh, affecting to interpret facetiously the
retort and the counter-retort. “Nare one o’ ’em hev got meat enough on
thar bones ter be wuth the scrapin’, ’ceptin’ it air Bob. Ha, ha! Bob’s
fat enough.”
Jepson’s only rejoinder was a glance of scorn. He strode over to the
shadowy corner where the children lay, and looked down at Sim’s pale,
unhappy face, with its marks of sullen sorrow all undispelled, even in
its absent, far-away expression. Aminty’s had the solemnity of sleep upon
it, and her tossed and tangled hair about it. Bob’s wide-open twinkling
hazel eyes shut instantly in feigned slumber the moment they encountered
Jepson’s. The diplomatist of four snored gently.
Jepson made no comment, but turned back to the broad hearth, slowly
divesting himself of his powder-horn and shot-pouch. The firelight
glanced upon his full blue eyes; the fairness of his brow contrasted
sharply with his sun-embrowned cheeks, and had a definite line across
it where the brim of his hat had ceased to cast its shade. The spurs on
the heels of his long boots, that reached to his knee, gave out a dull
metallic glitter. His brown jeans coat was begirt by a broad leather
belt, and his massive, well-formed figure seemed taller than usual,
since the others, seated, were fain to look up. Mrs. Bowles’s eyes had a
certain speculation in their bead-like brightness, as she sat silently
gazing at him for a time.
Then suddenly, “Ye needn’t be holdin’ yer jaw, Teck. I know jes’ ez well
ez ef I hed seen him ez that thar Bob air a-lyin’ thar broad awake, like
a fox, or possum, or suthin’, though he hev been tole forty times”—she
lifted her voice that the youth should hear—“ez the devil will kem arter
him an’ ketch him ef he waits ter go ter sleep till the house be dark.
I tell ye now what I’m a-goin’ ter do. I’m a-goin’ ter put him out’n
doors, ter keep company with them t’other night rampagers,—bars, ez eat
fat boys, an ’painters, an’ sech. An’ Bob’ll feel powerful lonesome out
thar in the dark mountings, a-tryin’ ter git away from ’em, this road an’
that. His legs air short, an’ he can’t run fas’. An’ he be so fat he mus’
be toler’ble heavy ter hisself ter tote.”
There was a vague stir under the quilts. Even the small stoic could but
writhe a little in prophetic anguish at this prospect.
Jepson turned abruptly, strode again to the bed, caught the child by the
collar of his nightgown, and the next moment Bob was sitting in his chair
before the fire, looking very rotund in his straight garment, and gazing
with wide, apprehensive eyes at his stepmother, expectant of the blow
that always came when she was thwarted. She did not deal it now. She was
constrained by the eye of the man as he stood once more on the hearth,
busying himself with the strap that held his powder-horn.
“An’ when enny bars, or painters, or devils, or folks take arter ye, Bob,
jes’ call on me, sir, an’ I’ll tend ter ’em.” He glanced down, and nodded
convincingly.
Bob looked up at the big man with a grave and plump countenance. He gave
a little sigh of relief, but he did not venture upon words. His pink toes
were more rosy in the light of the fire, and now and then curled in the
enjoyment of the warmth, for the night was chilly on the mountain. His
great wakeful eyes dwelt on the flames. He filled his little armchair
very comfortably, and his hair, standing up straight in front, gave him a
quaintly grotesque look.
Ben Bowles skillfully preserved an air of unconsciousness of the clashing
in the domestic circle. Mrs. Bowles seemed for a moment likely to
acquiesce without demur in the rule of the stronger. Then a flush rose
through her clear olive skin, and overspread her blunt features. Her
strong white teeth showed in a satiric smile. That added significant
glitter in her small dark eyes struck Jepson’s attention. As he held the
powder-horn in his hand he paused, and looked down intently at her. She
noted his glance. Her desire to harass was strong, but she could not
restrain her caustic tongue, or she might have baffled his curiosity.
“Keep on, Teck,” she said sarcastically, “keep on the way ye air a-goin’.
Set pore leetle Bob up thar ter ketch his death o’ cold, an’ take an axe
an’ hack me an’ Ben up, an’ set the house afire, an’—_ennything_! Ye air
ekal ter _ennything_ arter what we hev hearn ter-day.”
“Hearn what, ter-day?” he asked, marveling how the news of the disaster
had reached these untrodden, secluded wilds.
“Oh, nuthin’,” she said, flashing her eyes at him.
“Laws-a-massy, M’ria,” Ben Bowles ventured to remonstrate,—he would fain
have ignored the whole incident,—“let Teck tell us just what did happen.
Mought be some mistake.”
She laughed, and sneered too. “Toler’ble large-sized mistake, sartin, ter
kill Eli Strobe jes’ kase his darter wouldn’t marry ye—turned ye off!
Gals air choosers one time in thar lives, ennyhow.” She tossed her head
with a lively relish of this limited ascendency.
Jepson was shaken with a wild fear that they had had later news from the
Cove than he. Then he remembered that no one had entered or left the room
since his return.
“Eli Strobe warn’t dead whenst I left Brumsaidge,” he replied calmly.
“Thar, now, M’ria, what did I tell ye?” expostulated Bowles.
“Ye tole me,” she perversely retorted, “ez Teck war too sharp an’ smart
ter git inter enny sech trouble, even ef he warn’t none too good fur it.”
Jepson recognized the facile temporizing of Bowles in this, and he noted
the quick flush on the cheek of the master of the house, attesting the
veracity of his wife’s speech.
Jepson did not resent it, for he had a certain scornful indulgence of
the cowardly amiability of his half-brother, and a contemptuous pity
for the hardship of his position in his own house. He quietly hung the
powder-horn and shot-pouch upon a prong of the deer antlers that formed
the rack for his gun. Then he sat down before the fire, his eyes on the
blaze, his legs crossed, bringing one of his heavy boots so near Bob
that the fat baby could not refrain from leaning forward, and with both
chubby hands making the rowel whirl. His teeth shone, his eyes gleamed,
he chuckled with glee, till, catching Mrs. Bowles’s gaze, a sudden
gravity settled upon his open mouth, and he leaned back in his armchair,
affecting to rub his eyes, but now and then glancing furtively at her.
The cat came and purred about him, and rubbed against his dimpled legs;
then, suddenly bethinking herself, stood erect on her hind feet and put
her fore-paws on his knees to beg. He was not eating, but she watched for
some moments with stern and vigilant eyes every movement of his chubby
hands, that they should not undetected convey some unshared delicacy
to his lips. Finally even feline patience was exhausted, and with an
inaudible motion of mewing once or twice she sprang into the child’s lap,
curled up, and composed herself to slumber.
Bowles moved uneasily in his chair. The aggressive silence weighed
hardly less heavily upon his spirit than the more active expressions of
antagonism which he had sought to avert or annul. Now he glanced at his
wife with an urgent remonstrance in his face, of which he was unaware,
or he would have suppressed it in his timorous policy, and now at Teck
Jepson with an air of appeal.