第97章 ``THE BEGGARS ARE COME TO TOWN''(4)

Mr.Riddle went out.

``There, there, ma'am,'' she said, ``I hedn't no right ter speak, and ye fair worn out.'' She drew her gently into a chair.``Set down, ma'am, and don't ye stir tell supper's ready.'' She brushed her eyes with her sleeve, and, stepping briskly to my bed, bent over me.``Davy,'' she said, ``Davy, how be ye?''

``Davy!''

It was the lady's voice.She stood facing us, and never while I live shall I forget that which I saw in her eyes.

Some resemblance it bore to the look of the hunted deer, but in the animal it is dumb, appealing.Understanding made the look of the woman terrible to behold,--understanding, ay, and courage.For she did not lack this last quality.Polly Ann gave back in a kind of dismay, and Ishivered.

``Yes,'' I answered, ``I am David Ritchie.''

``You--you dare to judge me!'' she cried.

I knew not why she said this.

``To judge you?'' I repeated.

``Yes, to judge me,'' she answered.``I know you, David Ritchie, and the blood that runs in you.Your mother was a foolish--saint'' (she laughed), ``who lifted her eyebrows when I married her brother, John Temple.That was her condemnation of me, and it stung me more than had a thousand sermons.A doting saint, because she followed your father into the mountain wilds to her death for a whim of his.And your father.ACalvinist fanatic who had no mercy on sin, save for that particular weakness of his own--''

``Stop, Mrs.Temple!'' I cried, lifting up in bed.And to my astonishment she was silenced, looking at me in amazement.``You had your vengeance when I came to you, when you turned from me with a lift of your shoulders at the news of my father's death.And now--''

``And now?'' she repeated questioningly.

``Now I thought you were changed,'' I said slowly, for the excitement was telling on me.

``You listened!'' she said.

``I pitied you.''

``Oh, pity!'' she cried.``My God, that you should pity me!'' She straightened, and summoned all the spirit that was in her.``I would rather be called a name than have the pity of you and yours.''

``You cannot change it, Mrs.Temple,'' I answered, and fell back on the nettle-bark sheets.``You cannot change it,'' I heard myself repeating, as though it were another's voice.And I knew that Polly Ann was bending over me and calling me.

** ** ***

``Where did they go, Polly Ann?'' I asked.

``Acrost the Mississippi, to the lands of the Spanish King,'' said Polly Ann.

``And where in those dominions?'' I demanded.

``John Saunders took 'em as far as the Falls,'' Polly Ann answered.``He 'lowed they was goin' to St.Louis.

But they never said a word.I reckon they'll be hunted as long as they live.''

I had thought of them much as I lay on my back recovering from the fever,--the fever for which Mrs.Temple was to blame.Yet I bore her no malice.And many other thoughts I had, probing back into childhood memories for the solving of problems there.

``I knowed ye come of gentlefolks, Davy,'' Polly Ann had said when we talked together.

So I was first cousin to Nick, and nephew to that selfish gentleman, Mr.Temple, in whose affectionate care Ihad been left in Charlestown by my father.And my father? Who had he been? I remembered the speech that he had used and taught me, and how his neighbors had dubbed him ``aristocrat.'' But Mrs.Temple was gone, and it was not in likelihood that I should ever see her more.