“You can’t even tell where she is,” he said, turning the thing round in a hopeless manner, and then desisting. “It’s hard on us, Willie. Here she is; she hadn’t anything to complain of; a sort of pet for all of us. Not even made to do her share of the ‘ousework. And she goes off and leaves us like a bird that’s learnt to fly. Can’t trust us, that’s what takes me. Puts ‘erself— But there! What’s to happen to her?”
“What’s to happen to him?”
He shook his head to show that problem was beyond him.
“You’ll go after her,” I said in an even voice; “you’ll make him marry her?”
“Where am I to go?” he asked helplessly, and held out the envelope with a gesture; “and what could I do? Even if I knew— How could I leave the gardens?”
“Great God!” I cried, “not leave these gardens! It’s your Honor, man! If she was my daughter—if she was my daughter—I’d tear the world to pieces!” . . I choked. “You mean to stand it?”
“What can I do?”
“Make him marry her! Horsewhip him! Horsewhip him, I say!—I’d strangle him!”
He scratched slowly at his hairy cheek, opened his mouth, and shook his head. Then, with an intolerable note of sluggish gentle wisdom, he said, “People of our sort, Willie, can’t do things like that.”
I came near to raving. I had a wild impulse to strike him in the face. Once in my boyhood I happened upon a bird terribly mangled by some cat, and killed it in a frenzy of horror and pity. I had a gust of that same emotion now, as this shameful mutilated soul fluttered in the dust, before me. Then, you know, I dismissed him from the case.