III.
The Southern winter blossomed royally. Bees held high carnival in the nodding spikes of the white sage, and now and then a breath of perfume from the orange groves in the valley came up to mingle with the wild mountain odors. Brice worked every moment with feverish earnestness, and the pile of gnarled roots on the clearing grew steadily larger. With all her loveliness, Nature failed to woo him. What was the exquisite languor of those days to him but so many hours of patient waiting? The dull eyes saw nothing of the lavish beauty around him then, looking through it all with restless yearning to where an emigrant train, with its dust and dirt and noisome breath, crawled over miles of alkali, or hung from dizzy heights.
"To-morrow's the third, neighbor. I reckon she'll be 'long now d'reckly."
"That's a fact; what a rattler time is!" The days had not been long to Joel. "We'll go in to-morrow, and if they don't come you can stay and watch the trains awhile. She won't know you, Brice; you've picked up amazingly."
"I think likely Loisy'll know me if she comes."
But she did not come. Joel returned the following night alone, having left Brice at cheap lodgings near the station. Numberless passers-by must have noticed the patient watcher at the incoming trains, the homely pathos of his face deepening day by day, the dull eyes growing a shade duller, and the awkward form a trifle more stooped with each succeeding disappointment. It was two weeks before he reappeared on the mesa, walking wearily like a man under a load.
"I reckon there's something wrong, ma'am. I come out to see ef yer man 'ud write me a letter. I hadn't been long in Plattsville, but I worked a spell fer a man named Yarnell; like enough he'd look it up a little. I ain't much at writin', an' I'd want it all writ out careful like, you know." The man's voice had the old, uncomplaining monotony.
Joel wrote the letter at once, making the most minute inquiries regarding Mrs. Brice, and giving every possible direction concerning her residence. Then Brice fell back into the old groove, working feverishly, in spite of Mrs. Brandt's kindly warnings.
"I can't stop, ma'am; the settin' 'round 'ud kill me."
The answer came at last, a businesslike epistle, addressed to Joel. Mrs. Brice had left Plattsville about the time designated. Several of her neighbors remembered that a stranger, a well-dressed man, had been at the house for nearly a week before her departure, and the two had gone away together, taking the Western train. The writer regretted his inability to give further information, and closed with kindly inquiries concerning his former employee's health, and earnest commendation of him to Mr. Brandt.
Joel read the letter aloud, something—some sturdy uprightness of his own, no doubt—blinding him to its significance.
"Will you read it ag'in, neighbor? I'm not over-quick."
The man's voice was a revelation full of an unutterable hurt, like the cry of some dumb wounded thing.
And Joel read it again, choking with indignation now at every word.
"Thank ye, neighbor. I'll trouble you to write a line thankin' him; that's all."
He got up heavily, staggering a little as he crossed the floor, and went out into the yellow sunlight. There was the long, sun-kissed slope, the huge pile of twisted roots, the rude shanty with its clambering vines. The humming of bees in the sage went on drowsily. Life, infinitely shrunken, was life still. A more cultured grief might have swooned or cried out. This man knew no such refuge; even the poor relief of indignation was denied to him. None of the thousand wild impulses that come to men smitten like him flitted across his clouded brain. He only knew to take up his burden dumbly and go on. If he had been wiser, could he have known more?
No one spoke of the blow that had fallen upon him. The sympathy that met him came in the warmer clasp of hard hands and the softening of rough voices, none the worse certainly for its quietness. Alone with her husband, however, good Mrs. Brandt's wrath bubbled incessantly.
"It's a crying, burning, blistering shame, Joel, that's what it is. I s'pose it's the Lord's doings, but I can't see through it."
"If the Lord's up to that kind o' business, Barbara, I don't see no further use fer the devil," was the dry response.
These plain, honest folk never dreamed of intruding upon their neighbor's grief with poor suggestions of requital. Away in the city across the mountains men babbled of remedies at law. But this man's hurt was beyond the jurisdiction of any court. Day by day the hollow cough grew more frequent, and the awkward step slower. Nobody asked him to quit his work now. Even Mrs. Brandt shrank from the patient misery of his face when idle. He came into her kitchen one evening, choosing the old quiet corner, and following her with his eyes silently.
"Is there anything lackin', Brice?" The woman came and stood beside him, the great wave of pity in her heart welling up to her voice and eyes.
"Nothin', ma'am, thank ye. I've been thinkin'," he went on, speaking more rapidly than was his wont, "an' I dunno. You've knowed uv people gettin' wrong in their minds, I s'pose. They wuz mostly smart, knowin' chaps, wuzn't they?" the low, monotonous voice growing almost sharp with eagerness. "I reckon you never knowed of any one not over-bright gittin' out of his head, ma'am?"
"I wouldn't talk o' them things, Brice. Just go on and do your best, and if there's any good, or any right, or any justice, you'll come out ahead; that's about all we know, but it's enough if we stick to it."
"I reckon you're right, ma'am. 'Pears sometimes, though, as ef anything 'ud be better 'n the thinkin'."