Darwen

“ Darrow had straightened, and his indolent manner had fallen from him.
"I have said I would permit no harm to come to these people, and I mean it," said he.
"No harm!" cried Helen. "What do you call this—"
Darrow turned to the window looking out over the city.
"This!" he said. "Why, this isn't harm! There isn't a man out there who is not better off for what has happened to him. He has lost a little time, a little money, a little sleep, and he has been given a new point of view, a new manhood. As a city dweller he was becoming a mollusk, a creature that could not exist without its shell. ”

“ Darrow noticed that his hat was gone. He felt around the bench. On the grass he found it. This gave him a grain of comfort. Nothing is more forlorn than your civilized man without a hat. The hat was dry, too; and that was something.
He put it on his wounded head, and felt a tiny flicker of hope revive. A great weariness oppressed him; but he dared not sit down again in the park, to think. His wet, clinging clothes, too, urged him to be moving. Even though his billfold was now gone, and with it the precious scraps of paper, apparently his only clue, he could not feel that everything was lost. ”

“ Darrow waited a moment; then he said slowly: “What you imagine’s mere madness. She was at the theatre with me.”
“With you?” He saw a tremor pass through her, but she controlled it instantly and faced him straight and motionless as a wounded creature in the moment before it feels its wound. “Why should you both have made a mystery of that?”
“I’ve told you the idea was not mine.” He cast about. “She may have been afraid that Owen——”
“But that was not a reason for her asking you to tell me that you hardly knew her—that you hadn’t even seen her for years.” ”

“ Helen turned directly to him.
"When are you going to stop this?" she demanded.
Darrow raised his eyebrows.
"You needn't look at me like that. You said you could lay your hands on
Monsieur X at any moment; why don't you do it?"
"Eldridge is too amusing."
"Too amusing!" echoed the girl. "All you think of is yourself."
"Is it?" drawled Darrow.
"Have you been out in the city? Have you seen the people? Have you seen men out of work? Families leaving their homes? Panic spreading slowly but surely over a whole city?"
"Those pleasures have been denied me," said Darrow blandly. ”

“ Admiration is a pleasant medicine. Darby felt less lonely and out of life than he had for months. He seemed to step from his horse with scarcely any difficulty, and he only used his riding-whip to steady him as he went into the house. He even forgot to look grimly at the scarred side of his face in the glass. The stir of the gallop was still in his blood—his horse's jumping, the movement of perfect shoulders, the keenness of a good hunter, unfaltering, how seldom visibly tired. And how well Grandjer, Beauty and Daisy, and the rest of them had hunted, plodding along on relentless foes. ”

“ He has travelled everywhere, and seems to know everybody and everything. He 's very rich, too; I forget how many houses he has in England, and elephants without number in India.”
“Faix, you were in luck to fall in with him!” observed Darby.
“Yes, that I was I I 'm sure he 'll do something for me; and for you too, Darby, when he knows you have been so kind to me.”
“Me! What did I do, darling? and what could I do, a poor piper like me? Wouldn't it be honor enough for me if a gentleman's son would travel the road with me? Darby M'Keown's a proud man this day to have you beside him.” ”

“ Don’t you see how every single thing cries it out? Owen sees it—he saw it again just now! When I told him she’d relented, and would see him, he said: ‘Is that Darrow’s doing too?’”
Darrow took the onslaught in silence. He might have spoken, have summoned up the usual phrases of banter and denial; he was not even certain that they might not, for the moment, have served their purpose if he could have uttered them without being seen. But he was as conscious of what had happened to his face as if he had obeyed Anna’s bidding and looked at himself in the glass. ”

“ He was Darby, nothing more. Just Darby Dillon, who had always helped her. Would there not be something almost of relief in the cessation of friendly endeavours to isolate the lovers, to place them alone in chilly sitting-rooms, or send them for walks with carefully modest references to be sure to go down the yew walk, or the walk with the laurel hedges? And life behind the hedges just the same as in the open; Gheena unembarrassed, trying to time her quick movements to the cripple's, Gheena ignoring the word "marriage." Then lately, Gheena downcast, moody, with watchful eyes fixed on the sea ”

“ And you'll do it, or out we go."
"How are you, Eagen?" drawled Darrow.
"Not Eagen. I'm done with that. They've told you, haven't they?"
Darrow nodded. "Are you the only survivor?" he inquired.
"Except yourself."
"The Nigger? Pulz? Thrackles? The captain? All drowned?"
"Not the captain. They murdered him."
"Ah," said Darrow softly. "And you—I beg your pardon—your—er—friends disposed of the doctor in the same way?"
"Handy Solomon," replied Slade with shaking lips. "Hell's got that fiend, if there's a hell for human fiends. They threw the doctor's body in the surf." ”

“ Even through the stir of his subsiding excitement Darrow was at once aware of the change effected by the young man’s approach. For a moment Sophy Viner’s cheeks burned redder; then they faded to the paleness of white petals. She lost, however, nothing of the bright bravery which it was her way to turn on the unexpected. Perhaps no one less familiar with her face than Darrow would have discerned the tension of the smile she transferred from himself to Owen Leath, or have remarked that her eyes had hardened from misty grey to a shining darkness. ”

“ She had never known anyone by the name of Weltz. This was just what I had expected. The man for whom we are searching is shrewd almost beyond belief, and if we succeed in finding him it will not, we may be assured, be the result of any bungling on his part.
“I have now told you all I have learned, or rather all that is sufficiently definite to communicate—it is not much, yet it is a clue and may serve to give our hope a new lease of life. What do you think of it, Miss Darrow?”
“I think what you have learned,” Gwen replied, “will be of the utmost importance. ”

“ As a man will, when trying to readjust his mental processes, Darrow clasped his hands behind him, bent his head, and strolled along a little way, oblivious to all about him. Little he knew that, half a block behind, a husky individual in a gray suit and Panama, with bristly, close-cropped yellow mustache, had slacked his pace at the same moment, and now with sudden interest was studying the shop-window signs, as though looking for some very special place. ”

“ The old country, the old grey-skied land, had cast its glamour upon the girl. She wanted to live there among the childish, thriftless, and yet industrious people, who carried young hearts to their graves—where order and law did not count, and what ought to be done to-day could always be done to-morrow. And to her, Darby, limping, crippled, was man apart, perfect when he rode, seemingly part of his horses, the hunter of the hounds; every note in his voice, every look in his kind eyes, were dear to Psyche. ”

“ Assault, he might encounter; perhaps murder! He began to tremble violently. Down he crouched in the dark corner where the porch joined the house. He held his breath. The pounding of his heart seemed certain to betray him. There in an abject, cringing heap he obliterated himself.
None too soon, for already the unknown person was cautiously coming down the walk. Darrow could hear his breathing; the wheeze of it indicated a bulky individual. At the bottom of the steps the man paused an instant. Against the pallid dark of the sky, Darrow perceived a black blotch, which was the newcomer’s head. ”

“ Those poor young things that have to go about among us like machines—oh, if you knew how I pity them!”
“If you pity her, why not let her go?”
She stared. “Let her go—go for good, you mean? Is that the best you can say for her?”
“Let things take their course. After all, it’s between herself and Owen.”
“And you and me—and Effie, if Owen marries her, and I leave my child with them! Don’t you see the impossibility of what you’re asking? We’re all bound together in this coil.”
Darrow turned away with a groan. “Oh, let her go—let her go.” ”

“ Eyes gleaming with excitement, lips compressed to a tight, thin line, two pink spots beginning to burn on his hollow cheeks, Darrow worked on and on.
“Come on, now! Come on!” he breathed eagerly to himself, as though he had been beside a race-track, encouraging his choice. And with intense eagerness he scrutinized the large scale-map of the harbor. His pencil traced lines here and there, paused, darted, and made black jabs.
“‘Ua’?” he exclaimed. “That might mean anything! “There’s a little million of ’em, there! ”

“ Man's deep chairs of comfort, thick rugs for dogs to doze on and bow-wow spectrally in pursuit of dream-rats; and here among them Darby dreamt awake, as his terriers and big Scotch deerhound basked. Dreamt of what he had been, and of some wondrous bone-setters who could straighten twisted muscles, patch up broken bones, and send one Darby Dillon out again walking evenly, no longer a shuffling cripple, but a man who would have the right to go to the girl he cared for and offer himself to her. ”

“ You’re surely not thinking of going? There can’t be kinder people anywhere.” Darrow hardly knew what he was saying; but her answer came to him with deadly definiteness.
“I suppose it depends on you whether I go or stay.”
“On me?” He stared at her across Owen’s scattered papers. “Good God! What can you think of me, to say that?”
The mockery of the question flashed back at him from her wretched face. She stood up, wandered away, and leaned an instant in the darkening window-frame. From there she turned to fling back at him: “Don’t imagine I’m the least bit sorry for anything!” ”

“ Then came a voice, surly, suspicious:
“All-a close’ for-a business!”
Darrow’s only answer was to rattle the catch more vigorously than ever. The proprietor, after a moment’s silence, came forward heavily. A key turned. The door opened.
“Well, w’at-a you want?” demanded P. Buccamano & Co., compounded of fat and curls, a greasy mustache, an odor of garlic, and a general shirt-sleeve effect. From the rear room Darrow heard an infant’s wail, then the tones of a woman soothing it with the “La-la-la-la!” which speaks a universal tongue. ”

“ Why, with the prospect of meeting Gwen Darrow before him, an absolute unit of measure, with a snail’s pace, would have made good its escape from him. As it is a trick of poor humanity to refuse when offered the very thing one has been madly scheming to obtain, I hastened to accept Darrow’s invitation for my friend, and to assure him on my own responsibility, that time was just then hanging heavily on Maitland’s hands. ”

“ At the same moment, as the light fell on me, he started suddenly back, with an air of mingled astonishment and chagrin. “Why, M'Keown, you told me—” The rest of the sentence was lost in a whisper.
“It 's a disguise I made him wear,” said Darby. “He 'd no chance of escaping the country without it.”
“I 'm not speaking of that,” retorted the other, angrily.
“It is his age, I mean; he's only a boy. How old are you, sir?” continued he, addressing me, but with far less courtesy than before.
“Old enough to live for my country; or die for it either, if need be,” said I, haughtily. ”

“ Darrow had already guessed her to be a person who would instinctively oppose any suggested changes, and then, after one had exhausted one's main arguments, unexpectedly yield to some small incidental reason, and adhere doggedly to her new position. She boasted of her old-fashioned prejudices, talked a good deal of being a grandmother, and made a show of reaching up to tap Owen's shoulder, though his height was little more than hers. ”

“ With a wild cry, more of fear than of pain, Darrow sprang from his chair. “Gentlemen, I have been stabbed!” was all he said, and fell back heavily into his seat. Gwen was kneeling before him in an instant, even before I could assist him. His right hand was pressed to his throat and his eyes seemed starting from their sockets as he shouted hoarsely: “A light, a light! For God’s sake, don’t let him strike me again in the dark!” Maitland was already lighting the gas and Herne and Browne, so Browne afterward told me, were preparing to seize the assailant. ”

“ A. I do not understand you, Sahib.
Q. I will explain. Lona Ragobah confided to you certain facts in explanation of her conduct toward John Darrow. She loved him passionately, and it was her desire to stand acquitted in his sight. Were she alive now, any wish he had expressed during his life would be fulfilled by her as a sacred and pleasurable duty. This, then, as one who lovingly performs her will, should be your attitude also. John Darrow was the only man she ever loved, and, were she living, every drop of her loyal blood would rise against anyone who had done him injury. ”

“ In that abundant light Darvid stood near the desk, with bent shoulders; a number of wrinkles between his brows; his face inclined low toward the paper which he held in his hand. At his feet, on the rug, like a tiny statue, sat the motionless Puffie; with upraised head, and through silken hair, the dog looked into the face of the man. But Darvid did not see the little animal, and did not read the flattering phrases on the paper; he only repeated the words which, on a time, he had heard from his daughter:
"What do you want of so many people, father? Do you love them? Do they love you? ”