Stories by American Authors Volume VIII Part 11

She, too, knew Zerviah Hope, and looked up; but her pretty face was clouded with the awful shadow of her own responsibility.

"We all have about as much as we can bear," thought Zerviah, as he went by. His own burden was lightened a little that morning, and he was going home to get a real rest. He had just saved his last patient--the doctor gave him up. It was a young man, the father of five very little children, and their mother had died the week before.

The nurse had looked at the orphans, and said: "_He's got to live._"

This man had blessed him this morning, and called the love of heaven on his head and its tender mercy on his whole long life. Zerviah walked with quick step. He lifted his head, with its short, black, coa.r.s.e hair. His eyes, staring for sleep, flashed, fed with a food the body knows not of. He felt almost happy, as he turned to climb the stairs that led to the attic shelter where he had knelt and watched the dawn come on that first day, and given himself to G.o.d and to the dying of Calhoun. He had always kept that attic, partly because he had made that prayer there. He thought it helped him to make others since.

He had not always been a man who prayed. The habit was new, and required culture. He had guarded it rigidly since he came South, as he had his diet and regimen of bathing, air, and other physical needs.

On this morning that I speak of, standing with his almost happy face and lifted head, with his foot upon the stairs, he turned, for no reason that he could have given, and looked over his shoulder. A man behind him, stepping softly, stopped, changed color, and crossed the street.

"I am followed," said the nurse.

He spoke aloud, but there was no one to hear him. A visible change came over his face. He stood uncertain for a moment; then shut the door and crawled upstairs. At intervals he stopped on the stairs to rest, and sat with his head in his hands, thinking. By and by he reached his room, and threw himself heavily upon his bed. All the radiance had departed from his tired face, as if a fog had crept over it. He hid it in his long, thin, humane hands, and lay there for a little while. He was perplexed--not surprised. He was not shocked--only disappointed. Dully he wished that he could get five minutes' nap; but he could not sleep. Not knowing what else to do, he got upon his knees presently, in that place by the window he liked to pray in, and said aloud:

"Lord, I didn't expect it; I wasn't ready. I should like to sleep long enough to decide what to do."

After this, he went back to bed and lay still again, and in a little while he truly slept. Not long; but to those who perish for rest, a moment of unconsciousness may do the work of a cup of water to one perishing of thirst. He started, strengthened, with lines of decision forming about his mouth and chin; and, having bathed and cleanly dressed, went out.

He went out beyond the town to the hut where Scip the boatman lived.

Scip was at home. He lived quite alone. His father, his mother and four brothers had died of the plague since June. He started when he saw Hope, and his habitual look of fear deepened to a craven terror; he would rather have had the yellow fever than to have seen the Northern nurse just then. But Zerviah sat down by him on the hot sand, beside a rather ghastly palmetto that grew there, and spoke to him very gently. He said:

"The _Mercy_ came in last night, Scip.--I know. And you rowed down for the supplies. You heard something about me on board the _Mercy_. Tell me, Scip."

"He's a durn fool," said Scip, with a dull show of pa.s.sion.

"Who is a durn fool?"

"That dem mate."

"So it was the mate? Yes. What did he say, Scip?"

"I never done believe it," urged Scip, with an air of suddenly recollected virtue.

"But you told of it, Scip."

"I never told n.o.body but Jupiter, the durn fool!" persisted Scip.

"Who is Jupiter?"

"Doctor Remane's Jupiter, him that holds his hoss, that he brung up from the fever. He said he wouldn't tell. I never done believe it, _never_!"

"It seems to me, Scip," said Zerviah, in a low, kind voice, "that I wouldn't have told if I'd been you. But never mind."

"I never done mean to hurt you!" cried Scip, following him into the road. "Jupiter the durn, he said he'd never tell. I never told n.o.body else."

"You have told the whole town," said Zerviah Hope, patiently. "I'm sorry, but never mind."

He stood for a moment looking across the stark palmetto, over the dusty stretch of road, across the glare, to the town. His eyes blinded and filled.

"It wouldn't have been a great while," he said. "I wish you hadn't, Scip, but never mind!"

He shook the negro gently off, as if he had been a child. There was nothing more to say. He would go back to his work. As he walked along, he suddenly said to himself:

"She did not smile this morning! Nor the lady at the telegraph office, either. Nor--a good many other folks. I remember now.... Lord!" he added aloud, thought breaking into one of his half-unconscious prayers, which had the more pathos because it began with the rude abruptness of an apparent oath,--"Lord! what in the name of heaven am I going to do about it?"

Now, as he was coming into the little city, with bowed head and broken face, he met Doctor Dare. She was riding on her rounds upon a patient, Southern tackey, and she was riding fast. But she reined up and confronted him.

"Mr. Hope! There is a hateful rumor brought from New York about you. I am going to tell you immediately. It is said--"

"Wait a minute!" he pleaded, holding out both hands. "Now. Go on."

"It is said that you are an escaped convict," continued the lady, distinctly.

"It is false!" cried the nurse, in a ringing voice.

The doctor regarded him for a moment.

"I may be wrong. Perhaps it was not so bad. I was in a cruel hurry, and so was Doctor Frank. Perhaps they said a discharged convict."

"What else?" asked Zerviah, lifting his eyes to hers.

"They said you were just out of a seven years' imprisonment for manslaughter. They said you killed a man--for jealousy, I believe; something about a woman."

"What else?" repeated the nurse, steadily.

"I told them I _did not believe one word of it_!" cried Marian Dare.

"Thank you, madam," said Zerviah Hope, after a scarcely perceptible pause; "but it is true."

He drew one fierce breath.

"She was beautiful," he said. "I loved her; he ruined her; I stabbed him!"

He had grown painfully pale. He wanted to go on speaking to this woman, not to defend or excuse himself, not to say anything weak or wrong, only to make her understand that he did not want to excuse himself; in some way, just because she _was_ a woman, to make her feel that he was man enough to bear the burden of his deed. He wanted to cry out to her, "You are a woman! Oh, be gentle, and understand how sorry a man can be for a deadly sin!" but his lips were parched. He moved them dryly; he could not talk.

She was silent at first. She was a prudent woman; she thought before she spoke.

"Poor fellow!" she said, suddenly. Her clear blue eyes overflowed. She held out her hand, lifted his, wrung it, dropped it, and softly added, "Well, never mind!" much as if he had been a child or a patient,--much as he himself had said, "Never mind!" to Scip.

Then Zerviah Hope broke down.

"I haven't got a murderer's heart!" he cried. "It has been taken away from me. I ain't so bad--_now_. I meant to be--I wanted to do--"

"Hush!" she said. "You have, and you shall. G.o.d is fair."

"Yes," said the penitent convict, in a dull voice, "G.o.d is fair, and so he let 'em tell of me. I've got no fault to find with _Him_. So nigh as I can understand Almighty G.o.d, He means well.... I guess He'll pull me through some way.... But I wish Scip hadn't told just now. I can't _help_ being sorry. It wasn't that I wanted to cheat, but"--he choked--"_the sick folks used to like me_. Now, do you think I'd ought to go on nursing, Doctor? Do you think I'd ought to stop?"

"You are already an hour late," replied the woman of science, in her usual business-like voice. "Your subst.i.tute will be sleepy and restless; that affects the patient. Go back to your work as fast as you can. Ask me no more foolish questions."

She drew her veil; there was unprofessional moisture on her long, feminine lashes. She held out her hearty hand-grasp to him, touched the tackey, and galloped away.