Before he stood up again, to ease his back and to look at the ground which he still had to turn, I was kneeling behind a short, close-branched holly, the very last bush of the hedge-row, scarcely fifteen yards from the hawthorn-tree. It was quite impossible to get nearer without coming face to face with him. And now I began again to tremble, but with a great effort conquered it.
The man was panting with his labor, and seemed to be in a vile temper too. He did not swear, but made low noises full of disappointment. And then he caught up his tool, with a savage self-control, and fell to again.
Now was my time to see what he was like, and engrave him on my memory. But, lo! in a moment I need not do that. The face was the bad image of my father's. A lowered, and vicious, and ill-bred image of a noble countenance—such as it was just possible to dream that my dear father's might have fallen to, if his mind and soul had plunged away from the good inborn and implanted in them. The figure was that of a tall strong man, with shoulders rather slouching, and a habit of keeping his head thrown back, which made a long chin look longer. Altogether he seemed a perilous foe, and perhaps a friend still more perilous.
Be he what he might, he was working very hard. Not one of all Uncle Sam's men, to my knowledge, least of all Martin, would have worked so hard. With his narrow and ill-adapted tool he contrived to turn over, in less than twenty minutes, the entire bed of the meadow-leet, or trough, for a length of about ten yards. Then he came to the mouth, where the water of the main stream lapped back into it, and he turned up the bottom as far as he could reach, and waited for the mud he had raised to clear away. When this had flowed down with the stream, he walked in for some little distance till the pool grew deep; but in spite of all his labor, there was nothing.
Meanwhile the sunset glow was failing, and a gray autumnal haze crept up the tranquil valley. Shadows waned and faded into dimness more diffuse, and light grew soft and vague and vaporous. The gleam of water, and the gloss of grass, and deep relief of trees, began to lose their several phase and mingle into one large twilight blend. And cattle, from their milking sheds, came lowing for more pasture; and the bark of a shepherd's dog rang quick, as if his sheep were drowsy.
In the midst of innocent sights and sounds that murderer's heart misgave him. He left his vain quest off, and gazed, with fear and hate of nature's beauty, at the change from day to night which had not waited for him. Some touch of his childhood moved him perhaps, some thought of times when he played “I spy,” or listened to twilight ghost tales; at any rate, as he rose and faced the evening, he sighed heavily.
Then he strode away; and although he passed me almost within length of his rod, there was little fear of his discovering me, because his mind was elsewhere.
It will, perhaps, be confessed by all who are not as brave as lions that so far I had acquitted myself pretty well in this trying matter. Horribly scared as I was at first, I had not allowed this to conquer me, but had even rushed into new jeopardy. But now the best part of my courage was spent; and when the tall stranger refixed his rod and calmly recrossed those ominous planks, I durst not set forth on the perilous errand of spying out his ways and tracking him. A glance was enough to show the impossibility in those long meadows of following without being seen in this stage of the twilight. Moreover, my nerves had been tried too long, and presence of mind could not last forever. All I could do, therefore, was to creep as far as the trunk of the hawthorn-tree, and thence observe that my enemy did not return by the way he had come, but hastened down the dusky valley.
One part of his labors has not been described, though doubtless a highly needful one. To erase the traces of his work, or at least obscure them to a careless eye, when he had turned as much ground as he thought it worth his while to meddle with, he trod it back again to its level as nearly as might be, and then (with a can out of his fishing basket) sluiced the place well with the water of the stream. This made it look to any heedless person, who would not descend to examine it, as if there had been nothing more than a little reflux from the river, caused by a flush from the mill-pond. This little stratagem increased my fear of a cunning and active villain.