University of Virginia Library

12. CHAPTER XII.

Hours elapsed before John Hurdis arose from the
earth upon which he had thrown himself, overcome
by the mortification of his conscious imbecility.
When he did arise he was like one bewildered. But
he went forward. Stunned and staggering, he went
forward—the stains of the soil upon his face and
hands—his gun and clothes marked also with the
proofs of his humiliation. But whither should he
go? His mind, for a brief space, took no heed of
this question. He wandered on without direction
from his thought; but, with an old habit, he wandered
towards the dwelling of his coadjutor, Pickett. He
was partially awakened from his stupor, by the
sounds of a voice—the merry voice of unheeding
childhood. The sounds were familiar—they half
recalled him to himself—they reminded him where

he was, while fully impressing upon him his forlorn
condition. They were those of the idiot girl, and
she now came bounding towards him with an old
feeling of confidence. But ere she drew nigh, she
remembered the interview with John Hurdis in
which her mother unexpectedly became a party.
Without knowing why, she yet well enough understood
that her mother found fault with her conduct
on that occasion, and the remembrance served to arrest
her forward footsteps. She hung back when
but a few feet from the criminal; and a faint cry escaped
her. She shrunk from his altered appearance.
There is no form of idiocy, which brings with it an
utter insensibility to wo; and never was wo more
terribly depicted upon human countenance, than it
was then on that of John Hurdis. The involuntary
exclamation and spontaneous speech of the girl,
taught the miserable criminal, who had hitherto regarded
his inner man only, to give a moment's consideration
to his outer appearance; and he smiled
with a sick and ghastly smile to behold the clay-stains
upon his garments.

“Oh, Mister John—what's the matter—what
have you been doing to yourself. Look at your
clothes. You've tumbled in the ditch, I reckon.”

“Yes, Jane—yes! I've had a fall, Jane—a bad
fall. But how do you, Jane—I havn't seen you for
a very long time.”

“'Most a week, Mister John—and I've been
wanting to see you too, Mister John, to tell you all
about the strange man, and dad; and how mother
was frightened so. But you're hurt, Mister John—
you've got a bad hurt, I'm sure, or you wouldn't
look so.”

John Hurdis thought only of his hurts of mind,
and his moral fall, in replying to the idiot in the affirmative—a
reply which she received in a purely
literal sense. She would have run on in a strain of
childish condolence, but he listened to her impatiently,
and, at length, with an air that mortified the
child to whom he had always looked indulgence
only, he interrupted her prattle, and bade her go
to the hovel and send her father to him. She prepared
to comply, but her steps were slow, and looking
back with an expression of mournful dissatisfaction
on her countenance, awakened Hurdis to a more
considerate feeling. Changing his tone of voice,
and employing a few kind words, she bounded to
him with a sudden impulse, caught his hand, kissed
it, and then, like a nimble deer, bounded away in
the direction of the hovel. An age seemed to pass
away, in the mind of the criminal, ere Pickett came
in obedience to his summons. When he beheld him
coming, he retired into the wood, to which the other
followed him, eagerly asking, as he drew nigh—

“Well, 'Squire—how's it—all safe—all done?”

“Nothing's done!” was the reply. All's lost—
all. Oh, Pickett! I am the most miserable, the most
worthless wretch alive. My heart failed me at the
very moment. My hand refused its office—my
eyes—my limbs—all denied their aid to rescue me
from this accursed bondage. I knew it would be
so—I feared it. I would that you had done it—I
am!—Pity me, Ben Pickett, that I must say the
words myself—I am a coward—a poor, despicable
coward. I cannot avenge my own wrong—I cannot
defend my own life. I cannot lift my arm, though
the enemy stands threatening before me. I must
only submit and die.”

The look which accompanied these words—the
looks of mingled frenzy and despair—of feebleness
and passion—would beggar all attempt at description.
The cheeks of the wretched imbecile were
white—whiter then the marble. His eyes glassy, almost
glazed with the glaze of death. His mouth was
open, and remained so during the greater part of
their conference; and a stupid stare which he fixed
upon his companion while the latter spoke in reply,
was far from attesting that attention which his ear,
nevertheless, gave to his utterance. The inferior,
yet better nerved villain, absolutely pitied, and, after
his own humble fashion, endeavoured to console him
under his afflictions. But words are idle to him who
has need of deeds which he dares not to perform

himself, and cannot purchase from another. It was
a bitter mockery to Hurdis, in his situation, to hear
the commonplaces of hope, administered by one
whom guilt and ignorance, alike, made hopeless as a
teacher of others, as he must have been in his own
case hopeless. After hearing all that Pickett could
say, Hurdis was only conscious of increased feebleness.

“Go home with me, Ben—I feel so weak—I
don't think I can find the way myself. I am very
weak and wretched. Let me take your arm.”

Pickett complied, and relieving him from the gun,
the weight of which was oppressive to him under
his general mental, and physical prostration, conducted
him through by-paths to his home. Ere they
reached the avenue, he gave him up the gun, and
finding that he was unable to confer farther, though
willing, upon their mutual situation and necessities,
he left him with a cold exhortation to cheer up and
make the most of his misfortune. The other heard
him with little head or heed, and in the solitude of
his own chamber endeavoured to conceal the marks
of that misery which he was only now beginning to
discover it was beyond his art to subdue.

But, to return to my own progress while these
events were passing. It will be remembered that,
stunned by the murder of my friend, I was for three
days almost incapable of thought or action. I lingered

during that time with Colonel Grafton, whose
own kindness and that of his happy family ministered
unremittingly to the sorrows which they did
not hope to stay. After that time I felt the necessity
of action. The stunning sensations occasioned by the
first blow were now over, and I began to look about
me, and to think. I set forward on my way homeward,
burdened with the cruel story, which I did
not know how to relate. Nothing but a penknife and
plain gold ring of William Carrington had been left
untouched by his robbers. They had stripped him of
every thing in the shape of arms and money. The
knife was in a vest pocket and was probably too insignificant
for appropriation; the ring—one given
him by Katharine—was upon a little finger, and probably
escaped their notice, or was too tight for instant
removal. These I bore with me back—sad
tokens of what I could not bring. His horse they
had taken in their flight from the hovel, and probably
sold the next day in the Choctaw nation. Mine
was preserved to me, as, when William fell, and he
felt himself freed from all restraint, he naturally
made his way back to Colonel Grafton's where he
had been well provided for the night before. I had,
indeed, lost nothing, but that which I could not replace.
My money was untouched in my saddle
bags, and even that which I had about my person
had been left undisturbed. It is true, I had concealed
it in a secret pocket of my coat, but they had not
even offered at a search. The flight of Carrington
had too completely occupied their minds at first, and
the large sum which they found upon his person,
had subsequently too fully answered their expectations
to render it important, in their urry, that they
should waste time in examining me. Perhaps, too,
they may have regarded William as the purse bearer
for both. Whatever may have been the cause
of their neglect, I was certainly no loser of any
thing with which I had at first set out. And yet
how dreadful was the loss which I had to relate!
How could I relate it—how name to the poor girl,
looking for her lover, any one of the cruel words,
which must teach her that she looked for him in
vain? This was my continual thought, as I travelled
homewards. I had no other. It haunted me with
a continual questioning, and the difficulty of speech
seemed to increase with the delay to answer it, and
before I had answered it, I reached home.

The very first person I encountered was John
Hurdis. I approached him unawares. He was
walking from me, and towards the house. I had dismissed
from my bosom all feeling of hostility; for,
since the murder of William, it seemed to me that
all my old hates and prejudices were feeble. They
were all swallowed up and forgotten in that greater
sorrow. So completely had this become the case,

that, though, at leaving him but a week before, I
should have only spoken to him in curses. I now
spoke to him in kindness. My speech seemed to confound
him, no less than his conduct, on hearing it,
confounded me. As I have said, he was walking
from me in the road leading up to the avenue. He
had nearly reached the entrance, and was so completely
absorbed in his own thoughts that the head
of my horse provoked none of his attention. I called
to him, and I am sure that my voice could not have
been made more studiously unoffending.

“Well, John, how are you—how are all?”

“John—John!” he exclaimed, turning round, and
staring at me with a face full of unspeakable agitation.
“Who's that! What do you mean? What
do you want with me? Ha!”

“Why, what's the matter with you, John?” I
cried.—“What frightens you—don't you know me?”

“Know you. Yes, yes—I know you;” and his
face and movements both indicated a strong disposition
on his part to fly from me, but that his trembling
limbs refused to assist him.

“Why do you shrink from me?” I asked, thinking
that all his agitation arose from our previous
quarrel, and the fear that I was seeking some opportunity
of personal collision with him. “Why do
you shrink from me, John Hurdis? I am not angry
with you now—I do not seek to harm you. Be

yourself, brother, for God's sake, and tell me how
the old folks are. How's mother?”

He saw me alight from my horse, which I did at
this moment, and approach him, without being able
to give me any answer. When, however, I had got
alongside of him, he enforced himself to speech, but
without replying to my question.

“And what brings you back? How did you—I
mean—you have come back safely?”

“Ay—I am safe,” was my answer; “but, truth to
say, brother John, you do not seem to know exactly
what you mean. What! you are still angry about
the old business?—but you are wrong. It is for me
to be angry, if any body; but I am not angry—I
have forgiven you. Tell me, then, are the old people
well?”

“They are!” was his only and brief answer; and
I got nothing from him, but plain yes and no, while
we moved along together to the house. He was
evidently overcome with astonishment and fear. I
knew him to be timid, but, at that time—ignorant as
I was then, of the history which has been already
related—I found it difficult to account for his imbecility.
It was easily understood afterwards. But
even then I looked on him with pity, mixed with
scorn, as, shrinking and silent, he moved along beside
me. Guilty or not, I would not have had in
my bosom such a soul as his, for all creation.