IT had not seemed to Jack that he had been asleep, but vision-like recollections of the happenings of the day skimmed ceaselessly in a panorama-like vision through his tired brain. Now he saw the hot stretch of clearing as he had seen it that afternoon—the quivering, pulsing air, the slanting sun, the distant river, the blue further shore. Again and again he thought he struggled with his master. Sometimes he dreamed that the next day had come, and that his master had forgiven him. But through all these vision-like dreams there ever loomed, big and terrible in the background of his half-consciousness, the unknown fate that awaited him in the morning, and he would awaken to find those dreams dissolve into a black and terrible reality in which there was no spark of hope.
Suddenly he was startled from one of these half-waking visions by the sound of footsteps passing overhead, and then by the noise of a key rattling furtively in the lock. It sounded loud in the death-like silence. Then the door at the head of the cellar-steps opened, and the yellow light of a candle slid slanting down along the wall. Jack looked with straining eyes, and then he saw that it was Peggy Pitcher who was coming. She was in her stocking feet, and wore a loose wrapper and a mob-cap tied under her chin. “Why, Mrs. Pitcher,” whispered Jack, tremulously, “is that you?”
“Yes,” she said, “’tis I, but you be quiet.”
“What time of night is it?” Jack whispered.
“Why, ’tis early yet—not more than nine o’clock, I reckon.”
She did not reply, but set the candle down upon the floor and stood for a while regarding Jack, her arms akimbo. “Well,” she said at last, speaking angrily, “’tis all your own fault that you’re here, and ’tis none of my business. I told you not to go away from home with Dennis, but you did go in spite of all, and now you see what’s come of it. By rights I should let you alone; but no, here I be,” and she tossed her head. “Well,” she continued, “I’m not going to stand by and see you beat to death, and that’s all there be of it.”
Jack’s very heartstrings quivered at her latter words. “What do you mean, Mrs. Pitcher?” he said, hoping dumbly that he had somehow misunderstood.
“Why,” said she, “I mean that his honor’s in that state of mind I wouldn’t trust him not to have you whipped to pieces out of pure deviltry. I never saw him as mad as this before, and I don’t know what’s got into him. He’s been away from home somewhere, and something’s gone wrong, and the very black evil’s got into him. I’ve been talking to him ever since he sent you here, but he won’t listen to anything. I’ve seen him in bad humors, but I never saw him in as black a humor as he’s in to-night. If he sets on you to-morrow he’ll never stop till he finishes you, and that I do believe.”
