Hiram improved the
opportunity to eat a hearty supper, urging me to partake. But as I
declined, in my impatience, to take my eyes off the road, he brought
me out a bowl of some hot fluid and something on a plate, which I got
through with quickly enough, for the cool evening air had sharpened my
appetite. I rested the bowl on the broad bench beside the door, while
Hiram went backward and forward with the supplies.
"Now," said he as I finished at last, still keeping my eye upon the
road, "you go in and take a turn lyin' down: I'll watch the road. I'm
a-goin' to see this thing out."
But I was not ready to sleep yet; so, yielding to my injunction, he
went in, and I seated myself, wrapped in a buffalo robe from the
wagon. The night was damp and chill.
"Hedn't you better set at the window?" said the kind-hearted landlady,
bustling out. Hiram had evidently told her the story.
"Oh no, thank you;" for I was impatient of walls and tongues, and
wanted to be alone with my anxiety.
What madness was this in Bessie? She could not, oh she could not, have
thrown her life away! What grief and disquiet must have driven her
into this refuge! Poor little soul, scorched and racked by distrust
and doubt! if she could not trust me, whom should she trust?
The household noises ceased one by one; the clump of willows by the
river grew darker and darker; the stars came out and shone with that
magnetic brilliancy that fixes our gaze upon them, leading one to
speculate on their influence, and--
A hand on my shoulder: Hiram with a lantern turned full upon my face.
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