As he did so, in the still pause presaging the act, he heard the frenetic tugging of someone at the sticky orchard gate, that takes six pulls to open and three and a kick to close, ever since Jabe Stevens painted it drab, with black latch pickings. He heard the quick repeated pant of the pulls; felt in a flash the desperate occasion that was urging them; felt the very prayers surging about him on their way from a soul in turbulent tussle against destiny, and next moment was down on his feet before the window with a clear, arrestive "Hello!"
The click of the liberated latch; garments in swift full stir; a prolonged rending, like the descent of some four-octave chromatic, and a sudden breath-held, death-like stillness fell upon his landing. For a moment he could elucidate nothing by the look. Sight was sealed up in yellow lamplight. Two steps forward and the bondage was burst. He made out the line of flat wood stakes bounding the orchard to its half width, whence rough green rails complete the demarcation; and the gate, thrown three quarters open; and by it, the dim, motionless figure of a girl.
CHAPTER III
All that had been silence before was swallowed up at a gulp in the sudden deeps of discovery. The Spawer, with legs planted forcefully apart, chin thrown forward, and sidelong listening ear, tugged at the tawny end of his moustache. It is not altogether a child's task, whatever may be thought to the contrary, to address discreetly a panting feminine figure in the darkness at five paces, that has drawn the undesirable fire of our attention nearing midnight, and may be either a common garden thief or a despicable henroost robber; or a farm wench, deflected by the piano on her way home; or a mere tramp, bungling the matter of a free straw bed, and in trouble because appearances are against her; or none of these things at all, but something quite other, utterly beyond the scope of divination. And since it is neither generous to approach distress through the narrow portals of suspicion, nor desirable to doff one's hat in premature respect to what may turn out, after all, mere unworthy fraud, the Spawer held his peace a while in courteous attendance upon the girl. Before him her black silhouette remained rigid, stilled unnaturally, like a bird, in that last tense moment of surrender beneath the fowler's fingers. She stood, part way through the gate, with averted head—one hand straining the gate-post to her for strength and stay—the other clutched to quell the turbulence at her breast. In such wise, for a short century of seconds, discoverer and discovered waited motionless the one upon the other.
Pity for the girl's confusion, after a while, moved the Spawer when it seemed she meant to make no use of the proffered moments. He broke up silence with a reassuring swing of heel, though without advancing.
"I 'm sorry if I frightened you," he said, in an open voice, devoid of any metallic spur of challenge or odious trappings of suspicion. "I did n't mean to do that.... But..." He paused there for a moment, with the conjunction trailing off in an agreeable tag of stars for the girl's use, and then, when she caught her breath over a troubled underlip, took it up himself. "... We 're not accustomed to callers quite so late ... and I came out in a bit of a hurry. Is there anything I can do for you?"
Beautiful question of solicitude for a guilty conscience, that he smiled over grimly as he said it. He knew well enough that the very utmost he could have done for her would have been to keep the other side of the sill till she made good her escape. And he knew, too, that some part of her must have suffered tear by a couple of yards or so, but that was a matter might very well wait over awhile. For the present, all he wanted was a little enlightenment; later, the floodgates of compassion could be liberally loosened if required. He despatched his words, and dipped a hand into his trouser's pocket, making a friendly jingle of keys and coppers. The unperemptory tone of his voice, the kindness of the undiminished distance he kept, and this last show of leisurely dispassion did their work and raised the girl's head.
"Oh, I 'm sorry ... and ashamed!" she gulped, battling forth into the open through a threatening tumult of tears. "It 's all my fault ... every bit of it. I ought never to have come." She stopped momentarily, midway through her words, gripping on to fortitude in silence as to a hand-rail, till the big looming sob had gone by. "... So close. And I ought n't to have come ... at all, I know. But it 's too late now. Wishes won't do any good. Oh ... forgive me, please."
Her voice, even in the listening stillness of leaves, was almost inaudible, but there was the rare mellow sweetness of blown pipes about it such as the Spawer had not been prepared to hear at this time, and in this place. The musical ear of him opened swiftly wide to its magic like a casement to some forerunning spring breeze; and his heart stirred on a sudden to wakefulness—keen bird with a most watchful eye. Whatever else, it were absurd to couple vulgar delinquencies with so soft a mouthpiece. He flung the lurking idea afar, and a delightful flame of wonder grew up within him, illuminating possibility.
"Certainly," he said, in answer to her petition, striving to lull the girl's alarms with his manner of easy consequence. "I 'll do my best. But tell me first what for."