"What was the man's name?"
"If I heard, I've lost it. I put up just outside the town. If I'd gone in to hear the talk, I might have got mixed up; and I'd no call."
The hour was a long one. I hardly wished it shorter, yet I tried to hasten. I urged my horse; but mastery is of the spirit, not of the hand or will. He had obeyed so well the unconscious impulse! and now, though he started forward under the spur of an inciting word, he soon forgot it, and mounted the slow hills and descended them again with drudging step and listless ears.
What a meeting! what a topic for the nineteenth of April! I imagined Harry's grief, his shame, his concentrated indignation. I remembered the flash of his eye, the flush of his cheek, when Dr. Borrow was telling of the approach of the slave-coffle from which they had rescued Orphy. And with this a keen apprehension seized me. Would Harry have been able to repress his remonstrance, his reprobation? The common man I had just met had not trusted the acquired prudence of half a century. Could Harry's warm young heart contain itself?
Why was I not there? A warning, a restraining word——. But would Harry have heard it? Could I have spoken it? Would he not have felt, must not I have felt with him, that this was one of those moments when to see wrong done without protesting is to share in it? And then rose before me the possible scenes:—the beautiful, glowing face, the noble, passionate words, the tumult, the clamor, the scoff, the threat, the—— Oh, no! surely the angels would have had charge concerning him!
When we reached the summit of the last hill, my horse stopped of himself, as if to let me receive well into my mind the first lovely aspect of the town below us, and thus connect a charm with its name which nearer knowledge should not be able to disturb.
I yielded to the influence of the scene the more easily that it was in such contrast with my perturbed feelings. We may court and cherish a fanciful or a superficial grief; but the bitterly tormented mind asks ease as the tortured body does, and takes eagerly the soothing draught from any hand. The landscape, still freshened by the night, and already brilliant with the day, spoke peace and hope. I accepted the promise. Descending the hill, I thought and reasoned cheerfully. I smiled that I should have fancied nothing could happen in Omocqua, when Harry was there, without his having a part in it. This took place last evening; he had not heard of it yet, perhaps. Or he had heard of it; but not until it was over, and there was nothing to be done. He was commonly silent under strong emotion. He would have heard this story as he had heard others of the sort, with resolved composure, finding in it new food for his inward purpose.
On the outskirts of the town I came to a little tavern, the one probably at which my acquaintance of the road had lodged. I had almost stopped to ask the news, but thought better of it, and was going on, when a man sitting on a bench under a tree started up and ran after me, shouting. I stopped, and he came up out of breath.
"You thought we were shut, seeing us so still; but we're all on hand."