The Debtor: A Novel

by Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman

“Yes, ma'am,” replied Eddy. He raised his little cap as the dressmaker flirted away, then he started on a run down the street, sucking a molasses-ball, which is a staying sweet, and soon he left the travelled road and was hastening far afield.

Chapter XXV

It was September, but a very warm day. Charlotte had walked along the highway for some distance; then when she came to a considerable grove of oak-trees, she hesitated a moment, and finally left the road, entered the grove, and sat down on a rock at only a little distance from the road, yet out of sight of it. She was quite effectually screened by the trees and some undergrowth. Here and there the oaks showed shades of russet-and-gold and deep crimson; the leaves had not fallen. In the sunlit spaces between the trees grew clumps of blue asters. She saw a squirrel sitting quite motionless on a bough over her head, with bright eyes of inquisitive fear upon her. She felt a sense of delight, and withal a slight tinge of loneliness and risk. There was no doubt that it was not altogether wise, perhaps not safe, for a girl to leave the highway, or even to walk upon it if it were not thickly bordered by dwellings, in this state. Charlotte was fearless, yet her imagination was a lively one. She looked about her with keen enjoyment, yet there was a sharp wariness in her glance akin to that of the squirrel. When she heard on the road the rattle of wheels, and caught the flash of revolving spokes in the sun, she had a sensation of relief. There was not a house in sight, except far to the left, where she could just discern the slant of a barn roof through the trees. Everything was very still. While there was no wind, it was cool in the shade, though hot in the sunlight. She pulled her jacket over her shoulders. She leaned against a tree and remained perfectly quiet. She had on a muslin gown of an indeterminate green color, and it shaded perfectly into the coloring of the tree-trunk, which was slightly mossy. Her dark head, too, was almost indistinguishable against the tree, which at that height was nearly black. In fact, she became almost invisible from that most curious system of concealment in the world, that of assimilation with nature. She was gathered so closely into the arms of the great mother that she seemed one with her. And she was not alone in the shelter of those mighty arms; there was the squirrel, as indistinguishable as she. And there was another.

Charlotte with her bright, wary eyes, and the little animal with his, in the tree, became aware of another sentient thing besides themselves. Possibly the squirrel had been aware of it all the time.

Suddenly the girl looked downward at her right and saw within a stone's-throw a man asleep. He was dressed in an ancient, greenish-brown suit, and was practically invisible. His arm was thrown over his weather-beaten face and he was sleeping soundly, lying in a position as grotesquely distorted as some old tree-root. He was, in fact, distorted by the storms of life within and without. He was evidently a tramp, and possibly worse. His sleeping face could be read like a page of evil lore.

When Charlotte perceived him she turned pale and her heart seemed to stop. Her first impulse was to rise and make a mad rush for the road. Then she became afraid to do that. The road was lonely. She heard no sound of wheels thereon. It was true that she had entered the grove and seated herself without awakening the man; he might quite possibly be in a drunken sleep, difficult to disturb, but she might not be so fortunate a second time. Her slightest motion might awaken him now. So she sat perfectly still; she did not move a finger; it seemed to her she did not breathe. When a slight breeze rustled the tree-boughs over her head, and ruffled the skirt of her dress, her terror made her sick. When the breeze struck him, the sleeping tramp made an uneasy motion, and she felt overwhelmed. Soon, however, he began to breathe heavily. Before his breathing had been inaudible. He was evidently quite soundly asleep, yet if a breeze could disturb him, what might not her rise and flight do? It seemed to her that she must remain there forever. But the time would come when that sleeping terror would awake, whether she disturbed him or not, when that distorted caricature of man, as grotesque as a gargoyle on the temple of life, would stretch those twisted legs and arms, and open his eyes and see her; and then? She became sure, the longer she looked, that this was not one of the harmless wanderers over the earth, one of the Ishmaels, whose hand is turned only against himself. The great dark, bloated face had a meaning that could not be mistaken even by eyes for whom its meaning was written in a strange language. Innocence read guilt by a strange insight of heredity which came to her from the old beginning of things. She dared not stir. She felt petrified. She realized that her one hope was in the passing of some one on the road. She made up her mind that if she heard wheels she would risk everything. She would spring up and run for her life and scream. Then she wondered how loudly she could scream. Charlotte was not one of the screaming kind of girls who lifts up her voice of panic at everything. She tried to remember if she had ever screamed, and how loudly. She kept her ears strained for the sound of wheels, her eyes on the sleeping tramp. She dared not look away from him. Even the squirrel remained motionless, with his round eyes of wariness fixed. It was as if he too were afraid to stir. He retained his attitude of alert grace, sitting erect on his little haunches, an acorn in his paws, his bushy tail arching over his back like a plume.

Then slowly the man opened his eyes with a dazed expression, at first a blur of consciousness. Then gradually the recognition of himself, of his surroundings, of his life, came into them, and that self-knowledge was unmistakable. There was no doubt about the man with his twisted limbs and his twisted soul. He lay quite still a while longer, staring. Charlotte, with her eyes upon him, and the squirrel with his eyes upon him, never stirred. Charlotte heard her heart beat, and wished for some way to stifle it, but that she could not do. It seemed to her that the beating of her heart was like a drum, as if it could be heard through all the grove. She realized that she could not hear the sound of passing wheels on the road, because of this terrible beating of her heart. It seemed inevitable that the man would hear it. She felt then that she should take her one little chance, that she should scream on the possibility of some one passing on the road, and run, but she realized the futility of it. Before she could move a step the man would be upon her. She felt, moreover, paralyzed. She remained as perfectly motionless as the tree against which she leaned, with her eyes full of utmost terror and horror upon the waking man. He still looked straight ahead, and his eyes were still retrospective, fixed inward rather than outward. He still saw only himself and his own concerns.

Then he yawned audibly and spoke. “Damn it all!” he said, in a curious voice, of rather passive rage. It was the voice of one at variance with all creation, his hand against every man and every man against him, and yet the zest of rebellion was not in it. In fact, the man had been so long at odds with life that a certain indifference was upon him. He had become sullen. As he lay there he thrust a hand in his pocket, and again he spoke his oath against all outside, against all creation. He had thought absently that he might find a dime for a drink. Now that he had waked, he was thirsty, but there was none. Then he yawned, stretched out his stiff, twisted limbs with a sort of muffled groan, rested his weight upon one elbow, and shambled up as awkwardly as a camel. The girl sat still in the clutch of her awful fear. She no longer heard her heart beat. She was casting about in her mind for a weapon. A great impulse of fight was stirring in her. She felt suddenly that her little fingers were like steel. She felt that she should kill that man if he touched her. The fear never let go its clutch on her heart, but a fierceness as of any wild thing at bay was over her. She realized that in another minute, when he should see her, she would gather herself up, and spring, spring as she had read of a tarantula springing; that she would be first before the man, that she would kill him. Something which was almost insanity was firing her brain.

The man, when he had stood up, it seemed to Charlotte, looked directly at her. She was always sure that he did. But if he did, it was with unseeing eyes. His brain did not compass the image of her sitting there, leaning against the tree, a creature of incarnate terror and insane fury. He seemed to keep his eyes fixed upon her for a full second. Charlotte's nerves and muscles were tense with the restrained impulse to spring. Then he slowly shuffled away. As he passed, the squirrel slid like swiftness itself down the tree, and across an open space to another. The girl sank limply upon herself in a dead faint, and the tramp gained the road and trudged sullenly on towards Ludbury.

When Charlotte came to herself she was still sitting there limply. She could not realize all at once what had happened. Then she remembered. She looked at the place where the tramp had lain, and so forcibly did her terrified fancy project images that it was difficult to convince herself that he was really gone. She seemed to still see that gross thing lying there. Then she remembered distinctly that he had gone.