Edwin Brothertoft/Part III Chapter XIV

Chapter XIV.
Jierck Dewitt’s companions waited, at first silently, then anxiously, for his return.

Moments passed, and he was still gone.

“I hope he hain’t played us a trick,” whispered Van Wart.

“Not he!” says honest Sam Galsworthy.

“I’ll tell you what it is, boys,” whispers the root-doctor’s son. Jierck has got liquor aboard. Taint mutiny to say so, now he’s gone. I heard him walk tipsy when we came from the barn. When we got here, I saw he stood too ramrod for a sober man. You know how it is. Since his wife went bad, he’s lived on rum for stiddy victuals. He swore off to Major Skerrett. But he didn’t swear strong enough, or else somethin’ strange has drawed his cork.”

“If that is so,” said Lincoln-Brothertoft, “I must follow, and see that he does not risk himself or us. Watch, men, for your lives!”

“They may call that man Orderly Lincoln,” says Hendrecus Canady, as the other disappeared about the house, “but I believe he’s Tommy Jefferson or some other Congressman in disguise. He talks powerful dictionary. And how did he come to know this country like a hawk and like a hopper toad both?”

It seemed sad and sorry business to Edwin Brothertoft to go prowling like a burglar about the home of his forefathers.

He followed Jierck around the rear of the house. All the familiar objects wore an unkindly, alienated look. The walls were grim, the windows were dark, the whole building said to him, “You are an exile and an intruder.”

But he had no time for sentimental regrets. He turned the northern side of the house. A bright light burned in Lucy’s chamber in the tower. He could see a shadowy figure moving behind the curtain.

“My child! in a few moments we shall meet,” he thought.

Nothing to be seen of Jierck Dewitt! The sight of his daughter’s form revived his anxiety. Peering into the dark, he passed about the corner of the turret.

He stopped opposite the parlor windows on the front. A shutter stood open. A faint light, as from a nickering wood-fire within, gleamed out into the hazy night. The window-sill was breast high to a man.

“There we used to sit,” he murmured, “my wife and I. There by the fire, in the evenings of autumns long passed, I have watched her love dying, and all my hopeful vigor dying, — dying into ashes.”

The mighty despotism of an old love mastered him for a moment. There was little bitterness in his heart. These scenes, once so dear, became dear to him again. He pardoned them for their unconscious share in the tragedy of his life.

“I must have one glance into that room,” he thought. “My memory of it will be a troublesome ghost in my brain, until I have laid the ghost with a sight of the reality.”

He stole forward softly over the crisp, frosty grass, and looked cautiously in at the window.

Mrs. Brothertoft was seated alone before the fire. Guilt must sit alone and dwell alone. Loneliness is the necessity and the punishment of guilty hearts. No friends are faithful but the noble and the pure, and them guilt dreads and rejects. Mrs. Brothertoft was sitting alone in the fire-lit room. It was an instant before her husband’s eyes could distinguish objects within. He drew close to the window. He perceived her. A thrill of pity and pardon killed all his old rancors. He felt that, though he must war against her for his daughter’s sake, he fought, reserving an infinite tenderness for his foe.

And she within, — had she heard that stealthy step of his upon the stiffened grass and the dry leaves? Had his faint sigh penetrated to her, as she sat silent and moody? Did she feel the magnetism of human presence, — the spiritual touch of a spirit wounded by her wrong? Or was it merely that in these days of alarm and violence she kept her senses trained and alert?

He saw her cruel face turn suddenly, stare into the night, and mark an intruder.

For one breath he stood motionless.

Then, as she sprang forward to the window and shouted for help, he turned and ran around the rear of the house to the spot where he had left his comrades.