Mrs. Purvine rose slowly, and bent her meditative steps toward the door, wondering all the more why Mink should have disappeared so mysteriously, cognizant as he must have been of how his dangers had lessened, whither he had gone, with what purpose.
“Aunt Dely,” said Jerry, suddenly, following her slowly, “how did ye know ennything ’bout Mink, ef ye never hearn Skeggs tell it?”
“Jerry Price,” said Mrs. Purvine, sternly, “ef ye hed been raised by yer aunt Melindy Jane, I’ll be bound ye’d hev larned better’n ter ax fool questions with every breath ye draw.”
XXVIII.
Harshaw considered a knowledge of human nature as essential a tool of his trade as the Tennessee Reports, and the common human attributes, so far as he had discerned them, were definitely abstracted and tabulated in his mind,—for he was systematic mentally.
Nevertheless, he was profoundly ignorant of these traits as manifested in his own personality. Had another member of the legislature risen in his place one day, when the spring was just beginning to open, stating that he desired to make a motion based on public rumor, to which he considered the attention of the House should be directed, Harshaw could not have failed to note the ring of triumph in the voice, the predatory gleam in the eye, the restive eagerness of address, the swift fluency of excited words. He would not have been slow to deny to the demonstration those motives so insistently arrogated,—public justice, patriotism, sense of duty.
His manner had riveted the attention of the House, which was more than usually quiet. It had that sombre, undecorative aspect common to assemblages exclusively of men. The effect of uniformity of attire was, however, annulled in a measure by the varying expressions in countenance, in age, in attitude. The metropolitan representatives had a more dapper appearance than the members from the outlying districts, who were distinguished by a solid and serious mien that promised an intolerance of flippancy in matters of religion, and morals, and manners.
Here and there was a face individual enough to arrest attention. Kinsard’s head, with its high, earnest brow, its roving, melancholy black eyes, its sharp, characteristic features, stood out from the rest in strong relief, canceling the heads about it to a nebulous suggestion of humanity. He lounged in one of the most negligent of his dislocated postures. He had a smile of bitter contempt on his face, which bore no relation to his attitude of indifference, and expressed an energy of anger which he was at a loss how best to wreak. More than once he looked away from Harshaw, as if to divert his thoughts, to allay his irritation, by the contemplation of the scene without.
The windows stood open to the bland spring air. The languid, quiescent sunshine loitered along the great white stone porticoes, looking in often, a smiling, sheeny presence, upon the grave deliberations within. The river glistened in lustrous curves between high banks fringed with green as far as the eye could reach. The roofs of the city below were almost smokeless,—only here and there a wreathing hazy curl. The old forts on the hills wore all the dismantled and sunken aspect of desuetude, and gathered into the scars of war the blossoms of peace and the nestlings, and garnered the songs and the smiles of spring to make the waste places merry.