Margret Howth, a Story of To-day Part 12

It was Lois and her father,--Joe Yare being feeder that night. They were in one of the great furnace-rooms in the cellar,--a very comfortable place that stormy night. Two or three doors of the wide brick ovens were open, and the fire threw a ruddy glow over the stone floor, and s.h.i.+mmered into the dark recesses of the shadows, very home-like after the rain and mud without. Lois seemed to think so, at any rate, for she had made a table of a store-box, put a white cloth on it, and was busy getting up a regular supper for her father,--down on her knees before the red coals, turning something on an iron plate, while some slices of ham sent up a cloud of juicy, hungry smell.

The old stoker had just finished slaking the out-fires, and was putting some blue plates on the table, gravely straightening them. He had grown old, as Polston said,--Holmes saw, stooped much, with a low, hacking cough; his coa.r.s.e clothes were curiously clean: that was to please Lois, of course. She put the ham on the table, and some bubbling coffee, and then, from a hickory board in front of the fire, took off, with a jerk, brown, flaky slices of Virginia johnny-cake.

"Ther' yoh are, father, hot 'n' hot," with her face on fire,--"ther'--yoh--are,--coaxin' to be eatin'.--Why, Mr. Holmes!

Father! Now, ef yoh jes' hedn't hed yer supper?"

She came up, coaxingly. What brooding brown eyes the poor cripple had!

Not many years ago he would have sat down with the two poor souls, and made a hearty meal of it: he had no heart for such follies now.

Old Yare stood in the background, his hat in his hand, stooping in his submissive negro fas.h.i.+on, with a frightened watch on Holmes.

"Do you stay here, Lois?" he asked, kindly, turning his back on the old man.

"On'y to bring his supper. I couldn't bide all night 'n th' mill," the old shadow coming on her face,--"I couldn't, yoh know. HE doesn't mind it."

She glanced quickly from one to the other in silence, seeing the fear on her father's face.

"Yoh know father, Mr. Holmes? He's back now. This is him."

The old man came forward, humbly.

"It's me, Marster Stephen."

The sullen, stealthy face disgusted Holmes. He nodded, shortly.

"Yoh've been kind to my little girl while I was gone," he said, catching his breath. "I thank yoh, Marster."

"You need not. It was for Lois."

"'T was fur her I comed back hyur. 'T was a resk,"--with a dumb look of entreaty at Holmes,--"but fur her I thort I'd try it. I know't was a resk; but I thort them as cared fur Lo wud be merciful. She's a good girl, Lo. She's all I hev."

Lois brought a box over, lugging it heavily.

"We hev n't chairs; but yoh'll sit down, Mr. Holmes?" laughing as she covered it with a cloth. "It'd a warm place, here. Father studies 'n his watch, 'n' I'm teacher,"--showing the torn old spelling-book.

The old man came eagerly forward, seeing the smile flicker on Holmes's face.

"It's slow work, Marster,--slow. But Lo's a good teacher, 'n' I'm tryin',--I'm tryin' hard."

"It's not slow, Sir, seein' father hed n't 'dvantages, like me. He was a"----

She stopped, lowering her voice, a hot flush of shame on her face.

"I know."

"Be n't that'll 'xcuse, Marster, seein' I knowed noght at the beginnin'? Thenk o' that, Marster. I'm tryin' to be a different man.

Fur Lo. I AM tryin'."

Holmes did not notice him.

"Good-night, Lois," he said, kindly, as she lighted his lamp.

He put some money on the table.

"You must take it," as she looked uneasy. "For Tiger's board, say. I never see him now. A bright new frock, remember."

She thanked him, her eyes brightening, looking at her father's patched coat.

The old man followed Holmes out.

"Marster Holmes"----

"Have done with this," said Holmes, sternly. "Whoever breaks law abides by it. It is no affair of mine."

The old man clutched his hands together fiercely, struggling to be quiet.

"Ther' 's none knows it but yoh," he said, in a smothered voice. "Fur G.o.d's sake be merciful! It'll kill my girl,--it 'll kill her. Gev me a chance, Marster."

"You trouble me. I must do what is just."

"It's not just," he said, savagely. "What good'll it do me to go back ther'? I was goin' down, down, an' bringin' th' others with me. What good'll it do you or the rest to hev me ther'? To make me afraid?

It's poor learnin' frum fear. Who taught me what was right? Who cared? No man cared fur my soul, till I thieved 'n' robbed; 'n' then judge 'n' jury 'n' jailers was glad to pounce on me. Will yoh gev me a chance? will yoh?"

It was a desperate face before him; but Holmes never knew fear.

"Stand aside," he said, quietly. "To-morrow I will see you. You need not try to escape."

He pa.s.sed him, and went slowly up through the vacant mill to his chamber.

The man sat down on the lower step a few moments, quite quiet, crus.h.i.+ng his hat up in a slow, steady way, looking up at the mouldy cobwebs on the wall. He got up at last, and went in to Lois. Had she heard? The old scarred face of the girl looked years older, he thought,--but it might be fancy. She did not say anything for a while, moving slowly, with a new gentleness, about him; her very voice was changed, older.

He tried to be cheerful, eating his supper: she need not know until to-morrow. He would get out of the town to-night, or---- There were different ways to escape. When he had done, he told her to go; but she would not.

"Let me stay til' night," she said. "I be n't afraid o' th' mill."

"Why, Lo," he said, laughing, "yoh used to say yer death was hid here, somewheres."

"I know. But ther' 's worse nor death. But it'll come right," she said, persistently, muttering to herself, as she leaned her face on her knees, watching,--"it'll come right."

The glimmering shadows changed and faded for an hour. The man sat quiet. There was not much in the years gone to soften his thought, as it grew desperate and cruel: there was oppression and vice heaped on him, and flung back out of his bitter heart. Nor much in the future: a blank stretch of punishment to the end. He was an old man: was it easy to bear? What if he were black? what if he were born a thief? what if all the sullen revenge of his nature had made him an outcast from the poorest poor? Was there no latent good in this soul for which Christ died, that a kind hand might not have brought to life?

None? Something, I think, struggled up in the touch of his hand, catching the skirt of his child's dress, when it came near him, with the timid tenderness of a mother touching her dead baby's hair,--as something holy, far off, yet very near: something in his old crime-marked face,--a look like this dog's, putting his head on my knee,--a dumb, unhelpful love in his eyes, and the slow memory of a wrong done to his soul in a day long past. A wrong to both, you say, perhaps; but if so, irreparable, and never to be recompensed. Never?

"Yoh must go, my little girl," he said at last.

Whatever he did must be done quickly. She came up, combing the thin gray hairs through her fingers.

"Father, I dunnot understan' what it is, rightly. But stay with me,--stay, father!"