If Susanna could ever have been "knocked down with a feather," as she often averred, she might have been then.
Indignation, consternation, amazement, all the emotions which have to be expressed in polysyllables, pictured themselves on her countenance as she paused on the bedroom threshold and looked at the intruder over her spectacles, through them, and below them. He lay face down upon the pillows, his dirty boots reposing on her choicest log-cabin quilt, and his groans fairly chilling the blood even in her veins, used though she was to the habits of men in illness. Moses, in his groaniest days, had rarely equalled this.
After the moment's pause her mind worked quickly, and she expressed it in words, spoken more to herself than to Kate, close beside her.
"He mustn't lie there, that way, with them filthy old shoes on. He acts as if he was at the p'int o' death, though folks a-dyin' don't gen'ally caterwaul like that. I bet I know what ails him! It's them pies an' things he stole! If 'tis, I'm glad of it, serves him right!" she finished, triumphantly, and in her satisfaction went so far as to approach the bed and shake the man's shoulder.
At first he paid no attention to her, and his groans did not cease, though they became rather intermittent, as if the paroxysms of pain were less frequent. Finally, her voice, now pitched to its shrillest, penetrated his consciousness, and at her question: "What's the matter with ye? Got the colic?" he turned upon his side and his face was revealed.
Then, indeed, did Susanna's countenance undergo a more wonderful change. All the emotions which had earlier crossed it concentrated in one prolonged stare, while she felt her strength oozing from her till she knew she should fall. Her hand left the stranger's shoulder and dropped limply to her side, her jaw fell, and she would have sunk down upon the floor had not Katharine slipped a chair forward to receive her. Upon this she settled, still staring and speechless; and as if he, too, were profoundly moved, the tramp ceased groaning altogether and fixed his burning gaze on her. So they remained, and for so long, that Kate grew frantic, and begged:
"Oh, Susanna! what is wrong? Why do you look at him like that? Why does he look at you? Is he dying? Do you know him? Does he know you? Can't we do something for him? It's so dreadful to see anybody suffer. Even he, poor fellow, who—"
The Widow Sprigg held up a shaking hand protesting against this volley of questions and answering none. But after a little time the woman in her got the better of the judge, and, rising, she went to the wall cupboard and took from it a bottle containing brown fluid and plainly labelled, "Cholera Mixture. Poison." Pouring a generous dose into a glass, she diluted it with water and was returning to the bed when Katharine caught her hand to stay it, crying:
"Why, Susanna! How dare you? That's marked poison!"
The widow shook the girl's hand off, calmly replying: