CHAPTER XIII.
THE WAY-SIDE MEETING.
A footpath intersected the highway some few rods below Mrs. Mason's cottage, and ran off among the hills that lay behind Castle Rock. At this point, Thrasher paused. He had only reached town that day, and his first visit had been to the white cottage. Now, he thought of his parents, who lived on a farm among those hills, and of another person whose home he must pass in going there.
"I must see her, of course," he said, mentally; "but not at once. I have no heart for another scene. But the old folks—that will be all joy—no rebukes or entreaties ever came from that quarter. They will be hurt, too, if I sleep at a tavern, and the homestead so near."
With these affectionate thoughts urging him forward, he turned up the foot path and walked slowly on, wondering at the tender feelings that rose and swelled in his heart as he drew near the family home.
You would not have believed that the man who walked so quietly along the greensward with the moonlight on his face, could have been the same person who stood on the deck of that brig and superintended the number of lashes that should be dealt on the back of a human being. Once or twice, as his glance fell on some familiar object, a sweet brier bush, perhaps, or a cluster of tall mulleins that had grown by the footpath since he was a child, his eyes would fill with tears. There was something holy and homelike in the stillness that made a child of this cruel man.
The footpath led Thrasher into the Bungy road. He had mounted one hill and was descending into the valley which lay between it and another, when he saw some dark object sitting on a pine stump, from which he had gathered moss years before. His step was smothered on the sward, and the night wind, which made a rustling sound among the leaves of a neighboring wood, rendered his approach inaudible.
It was a woman shrouded in a cloak, but the light was so clear that he could see the outlines of her person, though her face was bent down and her limbs were drawn together as if she suffered from cold or sorrow.
Thrasher's heart told him at once who the woman was, and the knowledge made a coward of him. He hesitated, turned to go back, but resumed his course again, ashamed of so much weakness. The woman's face was bent down, her hands were locked around her knees, and he could hear the swell of her sobs as she rocked to and fro, as if the motion gave relief to some great pain.
Thrasher stood close by the unhappy creature, but she was lost in grief and did not look up.