To-morrow!He threw down the tin,trembling,and covered his face with his hands.When he looked up again,the daylight was gone.
Deborah,crouching near by on the other side of the wall,heard no noise.He sat on the side of the low pallet,thinking.
Whatever was the mystery which the woman had seen on his face,it came out now slowly,in the dark there,and became fixed,--a something never seen on his face before.The evening was darkening fast.The market had been over for an hour;the rumbling of the carts over the pavement grew more infrequent:he listened to each,as it passed,because he thought it was to be for the last time.For the same reason,it was,I suppose,that he strained his eyes to catch a glimpse of each passer-by,wondering who they were,what kind of homes they were going to,if they had children,--listening eagerly to every chance word in the street,as if--(God be merciful to the man!what strange fancy was this?)--as if he never should hear human voices again.
It was quite dark at last.The street was a lonely one.The last passenger,he thought,was gone.No,--there was a quick step:Joe Hill,lighting the lamps.Joe was a good old chap;never passed a fellow without some joke or other.He remembered once seeing the place where he lived with his wife."Granny Hill"the boys called her.Bedridden she Was;but so kind as Joe was to her!kept the room so clean!--and the old woman,when he was there,was laughing at some of t'lad's foolishness."The step was far down the street;but he could see him place the ladder,run up,and light the gas.A longing seized him to be spoken to once more.
"Joe!"he called,out of the grating."Good-bye,Joe!"The old man stopped a moment,listening uncertainly;then hurried on.The prisoner thrust his hand out of the window,and called again,louder;but Joe was too far down the street.It was a little thing;but it hurt him,--this disappointment.
"Good-bye,Joe!"he called,sorrowfully enough.
"Be quiet!"said one of the jailers,passing the door,striking on it with his club.
Oh,that was the last,was it?
There was an inexpressible bitterness on his face,as he lay down on the bed,taking the bit of tin,which he had rasped to a tolerable degree of sharpness,in his hand,--to play with,it may be.He bared his arms,looking intently at their corded veins and sinews.Deborah,listening in the next cell,heard a slight clicking sound,often repeated.She shut her lips tightly,that she might not scream;the cold drops of sweat broke over her,in her dumb agony.
"Hur knows best,"she muttered at last,fiercely clutching the boards where she lay.
If she could have seen Wolfe,there was nothing about him to frighten her.He lay quite still,his arms outstretched,looking at the pearly stream of moonlight coming into the window.I think in that one hour that came then he lived back over all the years that had gone before.I think that all the low,vile life,all his wrongs,all his starved hopes,came then,and stung him with a farewell poison that made him sick unto death.He made neither moan nor cry,only turned his worn face now and then to the pure light,that seemed so far off,as one that said,"How long,O Lord?how long?"The hour was over at last.The moon,passing over her nightly path,slowly came nearer,and threw the light across his bed on his feet.He watched it steadily,as it crept up,inch by inch,slowly.It seemed to him to carry with it a great silence.He had been so hot and tired there always in the mills!The years had been so fierce and cruel!There was coming now quiet and coolness and sleep.His tense limbs relaxed,and settled in a calm languor.The blood ran fainter and slow from his heart.
He did not think now with a savage anger of what might be and was not;he was conscious only of deep stillness creeping over him.At first he saw a sea of faces:the mill-men,--women he had known,drunken and bloated,--Janey's timid and pitiful-poor old Debs:then they floated together like a mist,and faded away,leaving only the clear,pearly moonlight.
Whether,as the pure light crept up the stretched-out figure,it brought with It calm and peace,who shall say?His dumb soul was alone with God in judgment.A Voice may have spoken for it from far-off Calvary,"Father,forgive them,for they know not what they do!"Who dare say?Fainter and fainter the heart rose and fell,slower and slower the moon floated from behind a cloud,until,when at last its full tide of white splendor swept over the cell,it seemed to wrap and fold into a deeper stillness the dead figure that never should move again.Silence deeper than the Night!Nothing that moved,save the black,nauseous stream of blood dripping slowly from the pallet to the floor!
There was outcry and crowd enough in the cell the next day.The coroner and his jury,the local editors,Kirby himself,and boys with their hands thrust knowingly into their pockets and heads on one side,jammed into the corners.Coming and going all day.
