She was silent. He chewed the mint-leaf between his teeth and stared at her dog.
"If you are so poor--" she began.
"Poor!" he cut in, with a mirthless laugh; "it"s only a word to you, I suppose."
He had forgotten her ragged and outgrown clothing, her shabby shoes, in the fresh beauty of her face. In every pulse-beat that stirred her white throat, in every calm breath that faintly swelled the faded pink calico over her breast, he felt that he had proved his own vulgarity in the presence of his betters. A sullen resentment arose in his soul against her.
"I don"t know what you mean," she said; "I also am terribly poor. If you mean that I am not sorry for you, you are mistaken. Only the poor can understand each other."
"I can"t understand _you_," he sneered. "Why do you come and ask me to pay money to your road-master when I have no money?"
"Because I am path-master. I must do my duty. I won"t ask you for any money, but I must ask you to work out your tax. I can"t help it, can I?"
He looked at her in moody, suspicious silence.
Idle, vicious, without talent, without ambition, he had drifted part way through college, a weak parody on those wealthy young men who idle through the great universities, leaving unsavory records. His father had managed to pay his debts, then very selfishly died, and there was n.o.body to support the son and heir, just emerging from a drunken junior year.
Creditors made a clean sweep in Albany; the rough shooting-lodge in the Fox Hills was left. Young McCloud took it.
The pine timber he sold as it stood; this kept him in drink and a little food. Then, when starvation looked in at his dirty window, he took his rifle and shot partridges.
Now, for years he had been known as a dealer in game out of season; the great hotels at Saratoga paid him well for his dirty work; the game-wardens watched to catch him. But his ice-house was a cave somewhere out in the woods, and as yet no warden had been quick enough to snare McCloud red-handed.
Musing over these things, the young fellow leaned on the rotting fence, staring vacantly at the collie dog, who, in turn stared gravely at him.
The path-master, running her tanned fingers through her curls, laid one hand on her dog"s silky head and looked up at him.
"I do wish you would work out your tax," she said.
Before McCloud could find voice to answer, the alder thicket across the road parted and an old man shambled forth on a pair of unsteady bowed legs.
"The kid"s right," he said, with a hoa.r.s.e laugh; "git yewr pick an" hoe, young man, an" save them two dollars tew pay yewr pa"s bad debts!"
It was old Tansey, McCloud"s nearest neighbor, loaded down with a bundle of alder staves, wood-axe in one hand, rope in the other, supporting the heavy weight of wood on his bent back.
"Get out of that alder-patch!" said McCloud, sharply.
"Ain"t I a-gittin"?" replied Tansey, winking at the little path-master.
"And keep out after this," added McCloud. "Those alders belong to me!"
"To yew and the _blue_-jays," a.s.sented Tansey, stopping to wipe the sweat from his heavy face.
"He"s only cutting alders for bean-poles," observed the path-master, resting her slender fingers on her hips.
"Well, he can cut his bean-poles on his own land hereafter," said McCloud.
"Gosh!" observed Tansey, in pretended admiration. "Ain"t he neighborly?
Cut "em on my own land, hey? Don"t git pa.s.sionate," he added, moving off through the dust; "pa.s.sionate folks is liable to pyralyze their in"ards, young man!"
"Don"t answer!" said the path-master, watching the sullen rage in McCloud"s eyes.
"Pay yewr debts!" called out Tansey at the turn of the road. "Pay yewr debts, an" the Lord will pay yewr taxes!"
"The Lord can pay mine, then," said McCloud to the path-master, "for I"ll never pay a cent of taxes in Foxville. Now what do you say to that?"
The path-master had nothing to say. She went away through the golden dust, one slim hand on the head of her collie dog, who trotted beside her waving his plumy tail.
That evening at the store where McCloud had gone to buy cartridges, Tansey taunted him, and he replied contemptuously. Then young Byram flung a half-veiled threat at him, and McCloud replied with a threat that angered the loungers around the stove.
"What you want is a rawhide," said McCloud, eying young Byram.
"I guess I do," said Byram, "an" I"m a-goin" to buy one, too--unless you pay that there road-tax."
"I"ll be at home when you call," replied McCloud, quietly, picking up his rifle, and pocketing his cartridges.
Somebody near the stove said, "Go fur him!" to Byram, and the young road-master glared at McCloud.
"He was a-sparkin" Ellie Elton," added Tansey, grinning; "yew owe him a few for that, too, Byram."
Byram turned white, but made no movement. McCloud laughed.
"Wait," said the game-warden, sitting behind the stove; "jest wait awhile; that"s all. No man can fire me into a ditch full o" stinging nettles an" live to larf no pizened larf at me!"
"Dingman," said McCloud, contemptuously, "you"re like the rest of them here in Foxville--all foxes who run to earth when they smell a Winchester."
He flung his rifle carelessly into the hollow of his left arm; the muzzle was in line with the game-warden, and that official promptly moved out of range, upsetting his chair in his haste.
"Quit that!" bawled the storekeeper, from behind his counter.
"Quit what--eh?" demanded McCloud. "Here, you old rat, give me the whiskey bottle! Quick! What? Money to pay? Trot out that grog or I"ll shoot your lamps out!"
"He"s been a-drinkin" again," whispered the game-warden. "Fur G.o.d"s sake, give him that bottle, somebody!"
But as the bottle was pushed across the counter, McCloud swung his rifle-b.u.t.t and knocked the bottle into slivers. "Drinks for the crowd!"
he said, with an ugly laugh. "Get down and lap it up off the floor, you fox cubs!"
Then, pushing the fly-screen door open with one elbow, he sauntered out into the moonlight, careless who might follow him, although now that he had insulted and defied the entire town there were men behind who would have done him a mischief if they had dared believe him off his guard.
He walked moodily on in the moonlight, disdaining to either listen or glance behind him. There was a stoop to his shoulders now, a loose carriage which sometimes marks a man whose last shred of self-respect has gone, leaving him nothing but the naked virtues and vices with which he was born. McCloud"s vices were many, though some of them lay dormant; his virtues, if they were virtues, could be counted in a breath--a natural courage, and a generous heart, paralyzed and inactive under a load of despair and a deep resentment against everybody and everything.
He hated the fortunate and the unfortunate alike; he despised his neighbors, he despised himself. His inertia had given place to a fierce restlessness; he felt a sudden and curious desire for a physical struggle with a strong antagonist--like young Byram.
All at once the misery of his poverty arose up before him. It was not unendurable simply because he was obliged to endure it.
The thought of his hopeless poverty stupefied him at first, then rage followed. Poverty was an antagonist--like young Byram--a powerful one.
How he hated it! How he hated Byram! Why? And, as he walked there, shuffling up the dust in the moonlight, he thought, for the first time in his life, that if poverty were only a breathing creature he would strangle it with his naked hands. But logic carried him no further; he began to brood again, remembering Tansey"s insults and the white anger of young Byram, and the threats from the dim group around the stove. If they molested him they would remember it. He would neither pay taxes nor work for them.
Then he thought of the path-master, reddening as he remembered Tansey"s accusation. He shrugged his shoulders and straightened up, dismissing her from his mind, but she returned, only to be again dismissed with an effort.