Dubious as the answer was, Eb’s face showed some relief.
“Do that, son! Think o’ sumpthin’—anythin’—an’ then go do it. I been a-thinkin’ till I’m all jumpy like, an’ it don’t git me nowheres. Mebbe I’d oughter let him shift for himself, seein’ he ain’t no relation o’ mine, but I can’t keep my mind offen the boy. He was borned unlucky, ye might say, an’ he never had much of a chance, an’—I’m right sorry for him.”
“Born unlucky? How do you mean?”
Uncle Eb glanced sidewise at him; pulled at one end of his walrus mustache; spat loudly, looked at his windows, and spoke—but did not answer.
“I got to be gittin’ in. I’m a-gittin’ cold. Uh—do what ye can for the pore feller. G’by.”
Hastily he lumbered houseward. Douglas stared, laughed shortly at the awkward rebuff, and sauntered away, unoffended. He knew the old man’s tongue had been clutched by the hand of habit—the habit of telling no tales about others; and, in a way, he honored the old fellow for it. What mattered Steve’s birth, anyway? The real crux was the problem of his immediate future.
All the way back to his abiding-place that problem bothered him. Night was not far off now, and the cold was increasing. Looking up at the chill gray cliffs of Dickie Barre as he passed along the road, he shivered. What a cheerless refuge for a half-clad boy! Skulking there alone in a black hole night after night, numbly waiting day after day, subsisting on cold food smuggled to him by stealth, dreading every sound, with a growing “misery onto his chest”—he was in a worse prison than the one from which he had escaped. Beside him, its grisly fingers perhaps already touching his lungs, lurked the dread spectre of the hills—Pneumonia. And he, Hampton, though he lived in a haunted house, had shelter and stove and warmth—and more room than he needed. All at once he nodded sharply. He knew what he would do.
Before night set in he worked a little while at his back door, which opened hard and creaked loudly. With his camp-ax he trimmed its edges, and with gun-oil he lubricated the rusty hinges, until it could swing easily and silently. After barring it he turned to the window of his sleeping-room, which hitherto had been wedged so that it would admit fresh air but nothing else. On this also he labored for a time. When it would rise with smooth speed he locked it with a short stake and turned his attention to preparing supper.
“Maybe to-morrow night we’ll have company,” he informed the emptiness. “Maybe.”
An hour later he was asleep on his aromatic couch, and the whole house was given up to darkness and silence.