Respected—how little it means to the man who is, how much to the man who is not.
“Why,” he said to himself—“perhaps after a while people will stop and talk to me an' say as they pass my shop: 'Good mornin', neighbor, how are you to-day?' Little children—sweet an' innocent little children—comin' from school may stop an' watch the sparks fly from my anvil, like they did in the poem I onct read, an' linger aroun' an' talk to me, shy like; maybe, after awhile I'll get their confidence, so they will learn to love me, an' call me Uncle Jack—Uncle Jack,” he repeated softly.
“An' I won't be suspectin' people any mo' an' none of 'em will be my enemy. I'll not be carryin' pistols an' havin' buckets of gold an' not a friend in the worl'.”
His heart beat fast—he could scarcely wait for the morning to come, so anxious was he to begin the life of an honest man again. He who had been an outlaw so long, who had not known what it was to know human sympathy and human friendship—it thrilled him with a rich, sweet flood of joy.
Then suddenly a great wave swept over him—a wave of such exquisite joy that he fell on his knees and cried out: “O God, I am a changed man—how happy I am! jus' to be human agin an' not hounded! How can I thank You—You who have given me this blessed Man the Bishop tells us about—this Christ who reaches out an' takes us by the han' an' lifts us up. O God, if there is divinity given to man, it is given to that man who can lift up another, as the po' outlaw knows.”
He lay silent and thoughtful. All day and night—since he had first seen Margaret, her eyes had haunted him. He had not seen her before for many years; but in all that time there had not been a day when he had not thought of—loved—her.
Margaret—her loneliness—the sadness of her life, all haunted him. She lived, he knew, alone, in her cottage—an outcast from society. He had looked but once in her eyes and caught the lingering look of appeal which unconsciously lay there. He knew she loved him yet—it was there as plain as in his own face was written the fact that he loved her. He thought of himself—of her. Then he said:
“For fifteen years I have robbed—killed—oh, God—killed—how it hurts me now! All the category of crime in bitter wickedness I have run. And she—once—and now an angel—Bishop himself says so.”
“I am a new man—I am a respectable and honest man,”—here he arose on his cot and drew himself up—“I am Jack Smith—Mr. Jack Smith, the blacksmith, and my word is my bond.”
He slipped out quietly. Once again in the cool night, under the stars which he had learned to love as brothers and whose silent paths across the heavens were to him old familiar footpaths, he felt at ease, and his nervousness left him.