With a sudden outburst of grief he began to weep. The great tears ran down his dirty cheeks and streaked them. His breath came in great blubbering sobs which he made no effort to check.
Eunice Maitland also went back in spirit many years and saw before her now, not the repellent vagrant, but a forlorn child who must be comforted. Without shrinking she clasped his vile hand in her dainty one and turned him back toward Susanna's cottage. That good soul had now drawn near and was herself crying bitterly. Why—she could hardly have explained. Surely, not from any affection for Nathan Pettijohn, returned rascal, nor from any sentimental memory of bygone years, such as her mistress's; but just naturally, in sympathy with two other tear-wet faces. She found the tears a relief. Indeed, they all appeared to do so, and began to retrace the way to the woodland cottage with swifter steps. The two women, because they were feeling the cold and now realizing what a foolish thing they had done in coming out unprotected from it. The vagrant, because it was his nature to follow rather than lead. Arrived there, they found the door wide open and the furnishing sadly disordered. Evidently, Nathan had rummaged the place thoroughly.
The Widow Sprigg had long since dried her unaccountable tears, and was freshly indignant at the state of affairs. So soon as they were within doors she turned upon the intruder, and demanded:
"What did you mean by such doin's as these, Nate Pettijohn? Ain't you ashamed to destroy folkses prope'ty this way? Where's my log-cabin quilt? My pillows? All my things?"
The man paid no heed to her, but fixed a hungry gaze upon the basket she had brought earlier in the afternoon, and Eunice interposed:
"Wait, Susanna. Let us feed him first, and hear his story afterward."
With that she opened the basket and set fresh food before him, while, with that thoughtfulness which was so constantly belying her sharp tongue, the cottage mistress went to the well and brought in a fresh pail of water. Though not as ravenous as he had been that afternoon by the riverside, he even now devoured, rather than ate, the sandwiches and cakes, swallowing them noisily and so rapidly that what the housekeeper had supposed would be sufficient to last any one for at least twenty-four hours disappeared in less than as many minutes.
"Well, my suz! If that don't beat the Dutch! I shouldn't think, if I hadn't knowed better, 'at you'd seen a mouthful o' victuals sence you scooted out o' Marsden a dozen years ago! An' as for manners—why, our pigs is better behaved. Water? Drink your fill, an' then, Nate Pettijohn, you walk right straight out to that wash-dish in the lean-to an' scrub yourself well. Of all the dirty creatur's—Why, what?"
The vagrant had been seized by a violent fit of coughing, so fierce that it threatened hemorrhage; and Susanna's wrath died.
"Consumption!" she whispered to Eunice, and shivered. It was of consumption "Spriggs, he" had died.