I ran him, shambling and stumbling, down the cutting till we had made a half-circuit of the town and were able to enter it at a point due east to that we had left. Then at last, on the slope of that quiet road we had crossed when escaping from Duke, I paused to gather breath and regard this returned brother of mine.
It was a sorry spectacle that met my vision, a personality pitiably fallen and degraded during those thirty months or so of absence. It was not only that the mere animal beauty of it was coarsened and debauched into a parody of itself, but that its informing spirit was so blunted by indulgence as to have lost forever that pathetic dignity of despair, with which a hounding persecution had once inspired it.
As I looked at him, at his dull, bloodshot eyes and loose pendulous lower lip, my heart hardened despite myself and I had difficulty in addressing him with any show of civility.
“Now,” I said, “what next?”
He stared at me quite expressionless and swayed where he stood. He was stupid and sodden with drink, it was evident.
“Let’s go home,” he said. “I’m heavy for sleep as a hedgehog in the sun.”
I set my lips and pushed him onward. It was hopeless entirely to think of questioning him as to the reason of his sudden reappearance, and under such circumstances, in his present state. The most I could do was to get him within the mill as quietly as possible and settle him somewhere to sleep off his debauch.
In this I was successful beyond my expectations, and not even my father, who lay resting in his room—as he often did now in the hot afternoons—knew of his return till late in the evening.
In the fresh gloom of the evening he stirred and woke. His brain was still clouded, but he was in, I supposed, such right senses as he ever enjoyed now. At the sound of his moving I came and stood over him. He stared at me for a long time in silence, as he lay.
“Do you know where you are?” I said at last.