IV
Occupied by the elm; and, as its shade
Has crept clock-hand-wise till it ticks at fern
Five inches further to the South,—the door
Opens abruptly, someone enters sharp, The elder man returned to wait the youth— Never observes the room's new occupant, Throws hat on table, stoops quick, elbow-propped Over the Album wide there, bends down brow A cogitative minute, whistles shrill, Then,—with a cheery-hopeless laugh-and-lose Air of defiance to fate visibly Casting the toils about him,—mouths once more "Hail, calm acclivity, salubrious spot!" Then clasps-to cover, sends book spinning off T'other side table, looks up, starts erect Full-face with her who,—roused from that abstruse Question, "Will next tick tip the fern or no?",— Fronts him as fully.
All her languor breaks, Away withers at once the weariness From the black-blooded brow, anger and hate Convulse. Speech follows slowlier, but at last—
"You here! I felt, I knew it would befall! Knew, by some subtle undivinable Trick of the trickster, I should, silly-sooth, Late of soon, somehow be allured to leave Safe hiding and come take of him arrears, My torment due on four years' respite! Time To pluck the bird's healed breast of down o'er wound! Have your success! Be satisfied this sole Seeing you has undone all heaven could do These four years, puts me back to you and hell! What will next trick be, next success? No doubt When I shall think to glide into the grave, There will you wait disguised as beckoning Death, And catch and capture me for evermore! But, God, though I am nothing, be thou all! Contest him for me! Strive, for he is strong!"
Already his surprise dies palely out
In laugh of acquiescing impotence. He neither gasps nor hisses: calm and plain—
"I also felt and knew—but otherwise! You out of hand and sight and care of me These four years, whom I felt, knew, all the while ... Oh, it's no superstition! It's a gift O' the gamester that he snuffs the unseen powers Which help or harm him! Well I knew what lurked, Lay perdue paralysing me,—drugged, drowsed And damnified my soul and body both! Down and down, see where you have dragged me to, You and your malice! I was, four years since, —Well, a poor creature! I become a knave. I squandered my own pence: I plump my purse With other people's pounds. I practised play Because I liked it: play turns labour now Because there's profit also in the sport. I gamed with men of equal age and craft: I steal here with a boy as green as grass Whom I have tightened hold on slow and sure This long while, just to bring about to-day When the boy beats me hollow, buries me In ruin who was sure to beggar him. O time indeed I should look up and laugh 'Surely she closes on me!' Here you stand!"
And stand she does: while volubility, With him, keeps on the increase, for his tongue After long locking-up is loosed for once.