The vacant laugh went off his face,and he answered her in a muttered word or two that drove her away.Yet the words were kindly enough.Sitting there on his pallet,she cried silently a hopeless sort of tears,but did not speak again.The man looked up furtively at her now and then.Whatever his own trouble was,her distress vexed him with a momentary sting.
It was market-day.The narrow window of the jail looked down directly on the carts and wagons drawn up in a long line,where they had unloaded.He could see,too,and hear distinctly the clink of money as it changed hands,the busy crowd of whites and blacks shoving,pushing one another,and the chaffering and swearing at the stalls.Somehow,the sound,more than anything else had done,wakened him up,--made the whole real to him.He was done with the world and the business of it.He let the tin fall,and looked out,pressing his face close to the rusty bars.
How they crowded and pushed!And he,--he should never walk that pavement again!There came Neff Sanders,one of the feeders at the mill,with a basket on his arm.Sure enough,Nyeff was married the other week.He whistled,hoping he would look up;but he did not.He wondered if Neff remembered he was there,--if any of the boys thought of him up there,and thought that he never was to go down that old cinder-road again.Never again!
He had not quite understood it before;but now he did.Not for days or years,but never!--that was it.and how like a picture it was,the dark-green heaps of corn,and the crimson beets,and golden melons!There was another with game:how the light flickered on that pheasant's breast,with the purplish blood dripping over the brown feathers!He could see the red shining of the drops,it was so near.In one minute he could be down there.It was just a step.So easy,as it seemed,so natural to go!Yet it could never be--not in all the thousands of years to come--that he should put his foot on that street again!He thought of himself with a sorrowful pity,as of some one else.There was a dog down in the market,walking after his master with such a stately,grave look!--only a dog,yet he could go backwards and forwards just as he pleased:he had good luck!Why,the very vilest cur,yelping there in the gutter,had not lived his life,had been free to act out whatever thought God had put into his brain;while he--No,he would not think of that!He tried to put the thought away,and to listen to a dispute between a countryman and a woman about some meat;but it would come back.He,what had he done to bear this?
Then came the sudden picture of what might have been,and now.
He knew what it was to be in the penitentiary,how it went with men there.He knew how in these long years he should slowly die,but not until soul and body had become corrupt and rotten,--how,when he came out,if he lived to come,even the lowest of the mill-hands would jeer him,--how his hands would be weak,and his brain senseless and stupid.He believed he was almost that now.He put his hand to his head,with a puzzled,weary look.It ached,his head,with thinking.He tried to quiet himself.It was only right,perhaps;he had done wrong.
But was there right or wrong for such as he?What was right?
And who had ever taught him?He thrust the whole matter away.
A dark,cold quiet crept through his brain.It was all wrong;but let it be!It was nothing to him more than the others.Let it be!
The door grated,as Haley opened it.
"Come,my woman!Must lock up for t'night.Come,stir yerself!"She went up and took Hugh's hand.
"Good-night,Deb,"he said,carelessly.
She had not hoped he would say more;but the tired pain on her mouth just then was bitterer than death.She took his passive hand and kissed it.
"Hur'll never see Deb again!"she ventured,her lips growing colder and more bloodless.
What did she say that for?Did he not know it?Yet he would not be impatient with poor old Deb.She had trouble of her own,as well as he.
"No,never again,"he said,trying to be cheerful.
She stood just a moment,looking at him.Do you laugh at her,standing there,with her hunchback,her rags,her bleared,withered face,and the great despised love tugging at her heart?
"Come,you!"called Haley,impatiently.
She did not move.
"Hugh!"she whispered.
It was to be her last word.What was it?
"Hugh,boy,not THAT!"
He did not answer.She wrung her hands,trying to be silent,looking in his face in an agony of entreaty.He smiled again,kindly.
"It is best,Deb.I cannot bear to be hurted any more.
"Hur knows,"she said,humbly.
"Tell my father good-bye;and--and kiss little Janey."She nodded,saying nothing,looked in his face again,and went out of the door.As she went,she staggered.
"Drinkin'to-day?"broke out Haley,pushing her before him.
"Where the Devil did you get it?Here,in with ye!"and he shoved her into her cell,next to Wolfe's,and shut the door.
Along the wall of her cell there was a crack low down by the floor,through which she could see the light from Wolfe's.She had discovered it days before.She hurried in now,and,kneeling down by it,listened,hoping to hear some sound.
Nothing but the rasping of the tin on the bars.He was at his old amusement again.Something in the noise jarred on her ear,for she shivered as she heard it.Hugh rasped away at the bars.
A dull old bit of tin,not fit to cut korl with.
He looked out of the window again.People were leaving the market now.A tall mulatto girl,following her mistress,her basket on her head,crossed the street just below,and looked up.She was laughing;but,when she caught sight of the haggard face peering out through the bars,suddenly grew grave,and hurried by.A free,firm step,a clear-cut olive face,with a scarlet turban tied on one side,dark,shining eyes,and on the head the basket poised,filled with fruit and flowers,under which the scarlet turban and bright eyes looked out half-shadowed.The picture caught his eye.It was good to see a face like that.He would try to-morrow,and cut one like it.
