Thus urgently besought, and willing to oblige, Reuben steps gingerly down the garden path, and, reassured by the heavy snores within, softly closes the summer-house door. He is about to retrace his steps when, bounce upon the floor, comes Peter Floome! Open goes the door with a bang, and a voice, so energetically fierce that Reuben turns upon his heel to assure himself that the speaker is really Peter, angrily exclaims, "No, you don't, now! Hain't I ben shet up like a dog in a kennel night arter night fur twenty-two year, say? An' what the d—l's the use o' pardonin' a man out, ef you can't give him the swing o' his own bedroom door?"
Reuben, who relishes a bit of humour, details to his mistress, on the morrow, this unsuccessful attempt of Harmy to compel Peter's respect to the proprieties. Miss Paulina, kindly wise, decides in favour of the open door, and thereafter, Peter, like "him that hath the key of David, openeth, and no man shutteth." The intense satisfaction of this cell-worn creature in his open door is, indeed, a thing to contemplate, and, touched, no doubt, by the homely pathos of the bowed, motionless figure sitting (often far into the night) in his low doorway, bathed in the tender beauty of the summer moonlight, or sharply projected on the darkness in momentary silhouette, by lurid flashes of summer lightning, Harmy herself is at length modified, and tacitly condones Peter's bold breach of decorum.
Through long disuse of the power of speech, Peter Floome has become habitually taciturn. His protracted fits of almost dogged silence are, however, relieved by equally abnormal attacks of garrulousness. In these moods he holds long and confidential discourse with Reuben. On a summer evening, seated in his humble doorway, he will recount for his entertainment such bits of prison gossip, or such incidents of prison life, as have retained their hold on his failing memory. Often on these occasions a dash of the old cynicism gives pungency to his speech, but, ordinarily, he is amiably at one with destiny, and at peace with himself and his neighbour. Behold him to-night, already in his talking-cap. Harmy and Mandy Ann are seated upon the summer-house steps; Reuben, wearied by a long day's haying, is reclining lazily upon the grass; Peter, meantime, is graciously intent in serving up for the three his most relishing prison tidbits. Harmy, being rheumatic, does not often grace these out-door assemblages with her august presence; "but to-night," as she herself explains, "havin' a longin' for a breath of fresh air, she jest strolled into the garden, an' thought she might as well set down with 'em and rest a spell." Peter's audience secured, he opens his budget of prison reminiscence and rehearses a long, heart-breaking drama, at which Harmy pulls out her handkerchief, and complains of a cold in her head, while Mandy Ann sobs outright, and Reuben himself is detected in an audible sniff.
"'Tain't a lively yarn, I'll 'low," apologizes the narrator, "an', p'r'aps, I hadn't oughter told it to you wimmin folks. Well, we've all got to go when our time comes; an' death ain't the wust thing in the world, no, not by a jug full! An', whenever the Almighty summons us, I hope we'll all face the music, an' go off with flyin' colours."
Harmy, who considers Peter's similes objectionably secular, here suggests, as an appropriate lesson, the parable of the ten virgins, and advises Reuben and Mandy Ann to "jine the church, an' have their lamps trimmed an' burnin' when the bridegroom cometh."
Peter, ignoring the parable, irreverently observes that "all the Ballous had ben handsomely buried;" an', when his turn comes, all he asks is to hev a marble gravestone, with verses cut on to it, same as the rest o' his folks. As to what's comin' after death (he philosophically avers), "'tain't no use to worry 'bout that; fur it stan's to reason that the Lord ain't goin' to hang on to His creeturs, through thick an' thin, in this world, an' then go back on 'em in t'other."
Reuben, who is not reflective, here yawns audibly, and, expressing his intention to "turn in," bids them a drowsy good-night. The "wimmin folks" follow his lead, and Peter is left alone in his moonlit doorway.
"There never was," as Harmy repeatedly asserts to Mandy Ann, who is about retiring, "such a night; light enough to pick up a pin by the moon, an' too pleasant fur any mortal to think o' sleepin'!"
Leisurely setting her sponge for the morrow's baking, gathering up her silver, bolting the doors, and looking after the window-fastenings, the good woman reluctantly retires to her chamber.
Having no disposition for sleep, Harmy, half undressed, sits looking out upon the moonlit garden. Her mind is ill at ease. "We live in a dyin' world," she drearily soliloquises. "Here's our May-blossom, now, poor blessed lamb! a growin' that weaker every day that it stan's to reason she can't last but a spell longer; an' Miss Paulina that bound up in the child, that how she's goin' to stan' the partin' the Lord only knows! An' there's Peter, goin' round with that pesky onsartin' heart, liable to stop beatin', without a minnit's notice, eny day.