WAITING.
Mr. Dillson had not passed a pleasant night. In the first place
he had not been able to move for a long time after 'Tilda Jane's
departure. For half an hour he had sat, hoping that she would return,
or that some one would call on some errand. Without his crutches he
was helpless.
Strange to say, he was not in a rage with her. Indeed, he had never
felt more kindly disposed toward her, and he certainly had never so
longed for a sight of her little thin, ungraceful figure. Just at the
moment of the burning of the crutches he could have felled her to the
earth, but after it was an accomplished fact his lack of resentment
was a marvel even to himself. Possibly it was because she had saved
the gold plate. Possibly--as minute after minute went by--it was
because a peculiar fear drove all vengeance from his mind.
He had not liked the look in her eyes when she went out. Suppose she
should make way with herself? Suppose she should jump into a hole in
the ice, or throw herself in front of a locomotive, or do any other
of the foolish things that desperate and maddened people were in the
habit of doing? What would then be his position? Not an enviable one,
by any means. He was partly--not wholly, for he had some shreds of
vanity left--aware of his neighbours' opinion respecting himself.
There was an ugly word they might connect with his name--and he
glowered over the fire, and felt sufficiently uncomfortable until a
strange and marvellous thing happened.
The kitchen was in an ell of the house, and, by hitching his chair
around, he could command a view from the side window of a slice of
the garden in front, and also of a narrow strip of the road before
the house. He would watch this strip, and if a passer-by appeared,
would hail him or her, and beg to have a new pair of crutches ordered
from the town.
It was while he was sitting in the gathering gloom watching this bit
of highway, that the marvellous thing happened. Just by the corner
of the house was a black patch on the snow,--the hind legs and tail
of the poor deceased Poacher. The fore part of the body was beyond
his vision. Dillson had no particular dislike for the spectacle. A
dead dog was a more pleasant sight than a living one to him, and he
was just wondering whom he would get to remove the animal, when he
imagined that he saw the tail move.
No, it was only his imperfect vision, and he rubbed his eyes and
moistened his glasses. Now the tail was no longer there--the hind
legs were no longer there. Had some one come up the front walk and
drawn the creature away?
He pressed his face close against the window-pane. No--there was the
dog himself on his feet and walking about--first in a staggering
fashion, then more correctly.
The old man eagerly raised the window. If the girl lived, and was
going about saying that he had killed her dog, here was proof
positive that he had not; and smacking his lips, and making a
clicking sound with his tongue, he tried to attract the resuscitated
Poacher's attention. He must capture the animal and keep him.
It was years since he had called a dog--not since he was a young man
and had gone hunting on the marshes below the town.
"Here, dog, dog!" he said, impatiently; "good dog!"
Poacher gravely advanced to the window and stood below him.
"Good dog," repeated the old man. "Hi--jump in," and he held the
window higher.
The dog would not jump while the enemy was there. He would not have
jumped at all, if he had been at the back door, for he would have
smelled his mistress's tracks and gone after her. Now he suspected
that she was in the house.
Though every movement gave him agony, the old man hobbled away from
the window. The dog sprang in, and Dillson clapped the sash down. He
had the animal now.
Poacher was running around the room, sniffing vigorously. He stood on
his hind legs and smelled at the peg where the hat and tippet had
hung. Then he ran to the wood-shed door.
With a most unusual exertion of strength, the old man rose, pushed
the chair before him, and breathing hard, and resting heavily on
it, opened the cellar door. He would shut the dog down there out of
sight, and where he could not run out if any one came in.
"She's down there, dog," he said, and the boldness with which he told
the story so impressed Poacher, that after one inquiring glance which
convinced him that his enemy's attitude had changed from that of a
murderous to a semi-friendly one, he dashed down the steps into the
cold cellar.
Dillson slammed the door, and chuckled. Now to get back to the
window. He tried to hitch his chair along, but he was weak and must
rest. He sat for a few minutes, and when the few minutes were over,
he found that his muscles had stiffened. He could not move.
He sat a little longer. The fire went out, and the room got cold. He
was so far from the window that he doubted if any one could hear him
if he shouted.
He lifted up his voice to try. He was as hoarse as a crow. He had a
cold, and it was every minute getting worse. If he had the dog from
the cellar, he might tie something to him and frighten him so that
he would go dashing through a window. He began to feel that if the
little girl did not return, he might sit there till he died.
His case was not desperate yet, however. He waited and waited. The
night came and went, and another morning dawned, and the weather
changed outside, until a stiff frost began to transform the thaw into
a return of winter weather--and still he waited, but the little girl
did not come.