“Before God!” he cried, “me an’ my right arm an’ my weepon air like saltpetre an’ charcoal an’ sulphur—no ’count apart. An’ tergether they mean gunpowder!”
And doubly bereaved, he had come in sight of home.
But his mother fell upon his neck with joy, and the neighbors gathered to meet him. The splendors of the Indian summer were deepening upon the mountains, with gorgeous fantasies of color, with errant winds harping æolian numbers in the pines, with a translucent purple haze and a great red sun, and the hunter’s moon, most luminous. The solemnity and peace stole in upon his heart, and revived within him that cherished sense of home, so potent with the mountaineer, and in some wise he was consoled.
Yet he hardly paused. In this lighter mood he went on to the settlement, eager that the news of his coming should not precede him.
There was the bridge to cross and the rocky ascent, and at the summit stood the first log cabin of the scattered little hamlet. From the porch, overgrown with hop vines, he heard the whir of a spinning wheel. He saw the girl who stood beside it before she noticed the sound of his step. Then she turned, staring at him with startled recognition, despite all the changes wrought in the past two years. “It air me,” he said, jocosely.
From his hollow eyes and sunken cheeks and wan smile her gaze fell upon his empty sleeve. She suddenly threw her arm across her face. “I—I—can’t abide ter look at ye!” she faltered, with a gush of tears.
He stood dumfounded for a moment.
“Durn it!” he cried. “I can’t abide ter look at myself!”
And with a bitter laugh he turned on his heel.
He would not be reconciled later. The wound she had unintentionally dealt him rankled long. He said Delia Noakes was a sensible girl. Plenty of brave fellows would come home from the war, hale and hearty and with two good arms, better men in every way, in mind and body and heart and soul, for the stern experiences they were enduring so stanchly. The crop of sweethearts promised to be indeed particularly fine, and there was no use in wasting politeness on a fellow with whom she used to play before either of them could walk, but whose arm was gone now, through no glorious deed wrought for his country, for which he had intended to do all such service as a man’s right arm might compass, but because he was a fool, and had made a friend of a malevolent scoundrel, who had nearly taken his life, but had only—worse luck—taken his right arm! And besides he had seen enough of the world in his wanderings to know that it behooves people to look to the future and means of support. He had learned what it was to be hungry, he had learned what it was to lack. He was no longer the brave and warlike man-at-arms, “Baby Bunting.” He had no vocation, no possibility of a future of usefulness; he could not hold a gun or a plow or an ax, and Delia doubtless thought he would not be able to provide for her. And “dead shot” though he had been he could not now defend himself, he declared bitterly, much less her.