CHAPTER XX.

WAITING.

Mr. Dillson had not passed a pleasant night. In the first place he had not been able to move for a long time after 'Tilda Jane's departure. For half an hour he had sat, hoping that she would return, or that some one would call on some errand. Without his crutches he was helpless.

Strange to say, he was not in a rage with her. Indeed, he had never felt more kindly disposed toward her, and he certainly had never so longed for a sight of her little thin, ungraceful figure. Just at the moment of the burning of the crutches he could have felled her to the earth, but after it was an accomplished fact his lack of resentment was a marvel even to himself. Possibly it was because she had saved the gold plate. Possibly--as minute after minute went by--it was because a peculiar fear drove all vengeance from his mind.

He had not liked the look in her eyes when she went out. Suppose she should make way with herself? Suppose she should jump into a hole in the ice, or throw herself in front of a locomotive, or do any other of the foolish things that desperate and maddened people were in the habit of doing? What would then be his position? Not an enviable one, by any means. He was partly--not wholly, for he had some shreds of vanity left--aware of his neighbours' opinion respecting himself. There was an ugly word they might connect with his name--and he glowered over the fire, and felt sufficiently uncomfortable until a strange and marvellous thing happened.

The kitchen was in an ell of the house, and, by hitching his chair around, he could command a view from the side window of a slice of the garden in front, and also of a narrow strip of the road before the house. He would watch this strip, and if a passer-by appeared, would hail him or her, and beg to have a new pair of crutches ordered from the town.

It was while he was sitting in the gathering gloom watching this bit of highway, that the marvellous thing happened. Just by the corner of the house was a black patch on the snow,--the hind legs and tail of the poor deceased Poacher. The fore part of the body was beyond his vision. Dillson had no particular dislike for the spectacle. A dead dog was a more pleasant sight than a living one to him, and he was just wondering whom he would get to remove the animal, when he imagined that he saw the tail move.

No, it was only his imperfect vision, and he rubbed his eyes and moistened his glasses. Now the tail was no longer there--the hind legs were no longer there. Had some one come up the front walk and drawn the creature away?

He pressed his face close against the window-pane. No--there was the dog himself on his feet and walking about--first in a staggering fashion, then more correctly.

The old man eagerly raised the window. If the girl lived, and was going about saying that he had killed her dog, here was proof positive that he had not; and smacking his lips, and making a clicking sound with his tongue, he tried to attract the resuscitated Poacher's attention. He must capture the animal and keep him.

It was years since he had called a dog--not since he was a young man and had gone hunting on the marshes below the town.

"Here, dog, dog!" he said, impatiently; "good dog!"

Poacher gravely advanced to the window and stood below him.

"Good dog," repeated the old man. "Hi--jump in," and he held the window higher.

The dog would not jump while the enemy was there. He would not have jumped at all, if he had been at the back door, for he would have smelled his mistress's tracks and gone after her. Now he suspected that she was in the house.

Though every movement gave him agony, the old man hobbled away from the window. The dog sprang in, and Dillson clapped the sash down. He had the animal now.

Poacher was running around the room, sniffing vigorously. He stood on his hind legs and smelled at the peg where the hat and tippet had hung. Then he ran to the wood-shed door.

With a most unusual exertion of strength, the old man rose, pushed the chair before him, and breathing hard, and resting heavily on it, opened the cellar door. He would shut the dog down there out of sight, and where he could not run out if any one came in.

"She's down there, dog," he said, and the boldness with which he told the story so impressed Poacher, that after one inquiring glance which convinced him that his enemy's attitude had changed from that of a murderous to a semi-friendly one, he dashed down the steps into the cold cellar.

Dillson slammed the door, and chuckled. Now to get back to the window. He tried to hitch his chair along, but he was weak and must rest. He sat for a few minutes, and when the few minutes were over, he found that his muscles had stiffened. He could not move.

He sat a little longer. The fire went out, and the room got cold. He was so far from the window that he doubted if any one could hear him if he shouted.

He lifted up his voice to try. He was as hoarse as a crow. He had a cold, and it was every minute getting worse. If he had the dog from the cellar, he might tie something to him and frighten him so that he would go dashing through a window. He began to feel that if the little girl did not return, he might sit there till he died.

His case was not desperate yet, however. He waited and waited. The night came and went, and another morning dawned, and the weather changed outside, until a stiff frost began to transform the thaw into a return of winter weather--and still he waited, but the little girl did not come.