Tubal Cain Sims’s head turned from one to the other with a pivotal action which was less suggestive of muscles than of machinery. His eyes were starting from beneath his shaggy, overhanging eyebrows. His lower jaw had dropped. Thus dangled before him, his own identity was as recognizable to him as to their divination. If he had had time to think, there might have seemed something uncanny in this facile meddling with the secrets of his inner consciousness, hardly so plain to his own prognosis as in their exposition, but moment by moment he was hurried on.
“Your personal motive in giving this information,” continued the deputy, “is because you are afraid of the man.”
“Not for myse’f,” blurted out Tubal Sims. “Before Gawd, I’ll swear, not for myse’f.” He was all unaware of an impending disclosure of the facts that he had resolved to hide, since the horrors of the jail, the true, visible presentment of the abstract idea of imprisonment, had burst upon his shuddering realization. He had forgotten his caution. His obstinate reticence relaxed. All the manhood within him roused to the alarm of the possibility that these officers should impute to him fear of any man for his own sake. He lifted a trembling, stiffened old hand with a deprecatory gesture. “Jes’ one—jes’ one darter!” He lowered his voice in expostulation.
“One daughter!” echoed the sheriff in surprise.
“Gittin’ interestin’,” murmured the flippant deputy.
“An’ this hyar man wants ter marry her, an’ she is willin’ ter marry him, an’—an’ he spoke of runnin’ away.” Tubal Cain Sims brought this enormity out with a sudden dilation of the eyes irresistible to the impudent deputy.
“Powerful painful to the survivors!” he snorted in a choking chuckle, “but not even a misdemeanor agin the law o’ the land.”
The sheriff’s countenance changed. Not that he apprehended any cause for mirth, for it might be safely said that he had not laughed at a joke for the past six years, and it would have been a matter of some interest to know how he appraised the cachinnation habitually going on all around about him, and which he was temperamentally debarred from sharing. His face merely took on a perplexed and keenly inquisitive expression as he bent his brow as to a worthy mystery.
“You know a man can’t be arrested for runnin’ away with a young woman an’ marryin’ her,” he expostulated. “You ain’t such a fool as to think you can take the law to him to prevent that.”
There are few people in this world who do not arrogate to themselves special mental supremacy. Folly is like unto the jewel in the forehead of the toad in that the creature thus endowed is unaware of its possession. Tubal Cain Sims had perceived subacutely the acumen of both the officers, and was emulous of demonstrating his own intellectual gifts. The word “fool” is a lash that stings, and, smarting, he protested:—