"And after that?"
"I will not go to the house."
He took my hand, and I forgot that he was a stilted and officious negro. "Good-night, Mr. Belford." He turned away, but faced about and said: "I am going to a cabin on the hillside—to pray for you. Good-night."
CHAPTER XIV.
OLD JOE VARK.
The town was going to bed; the late moon was rising, and in the magnolia gardens there seemed to waver a bright and shadowy silence—a night when every sound was afar off, a half mysterious echo—the closing of a window shutter, the subdued footfall of a thief, the indistinct notes of an old song lagging in the soft and lazy air. I walked about the courthouse, its pillars classic in the shadow, its gilded cupola gaudy in the light. I did not turn to my habitation across the square, to sniff the lifeless atmosphere and the sickish paint of the opera house; I bent my way to the river where the moon was free. And upon a rotting yawl I sat down to think, shoulder to shoulder with the ghost of a dead commerce. Far across the stream a mud scow fretted and fluttered like a duck in distress, making just enough of noise to cry "silence" in the ear of night.
There is religion in the reverie of even an atheist; and in the meditation of a free-thinker, whose grandfather was a believer, there is almost a confession of faith. I thought of all that the negro had said; I reviewed his earnestness and saw his look of trouble; I pictured Talcom in his trustfulness; I saw his daughter in her unsuspecting innocence, impulsive, almost eccentric, and yet a type of the South. I thought of it all, and I swore that I would keep faith with the preacher. I swore it with my hand held up, I ground myself down until I felt the rotting old boat crumbling beneath me, and yet it seemed that some devil arose in the air maliciously to whisper, "No you won't." And in this reproach, intended to tantalize the conscience, there was a shameful sweetness, a promise that again I should sit in the garden with her. But I went to bed strong, and I arose with strength the next morning. I would chase a fox with her, and then, I should see her no more, except by accident.
The Senator had enjoined me not to appear overglad to make acquaintances; not to invite the approach of the idle, lest they should become familiar, but it was hard to maintain dignity in the presence of such good humor and friendliness. A man whom I might have passed a hundred times, without suspecting his importance, would stop me to say that his name was Hopgood or Leatherington or Yancey; to assure me that his grandfather, after having come out of the Mexican War, had served as Clerk of the Circuit Court; that he was pleased to welcome me to Bolanyo; that it was about his time of day (looking at his watch) to take a drink, and that he would be pleased to have me join him. I had not the nerve nor the dignity to cool these warm advances, rich in a yellowing sort of humor, the sad fun of a dying importance; and I found that the Senator, himself, while pretending to preserve the austerity of a high position, brought matters close to earth by putting his arm about some old fellow to laugh over an ancient and shady joke. In the town there was one man who scouted the idea of self-importance, except when drunk, and then he sometimes assumed to own the community. This man was Joe Vark, a shoemaker.
In the forenoon, the day after my moral vow had been taken, I went into his shop. He was sitting on his low bench; and he looked up, with a number of shoe-pegs showing between his lips, and mumbled me an invitation to sit down. He was short, with a fine head and thin, light hair. His wrinkled face was rather pale and clean of beard. Beside him lay a book, held partly open by an old shoe sole.