Aaron Trow | Page 9

allowance was given day by day to the
negro servants, and even the fragments were then gathered up and
locked away in safety. She moved across the kitchen to the accustomed
cupboard, taking the keys from her pocket, and he followed close upon
her. There was a small oil lamp hanging from the low ceiling which
just gave them light to see each other. She lifted her hand to this to tare
it from its hook, but he prevented her. "No, by Heaven!" he said, "you
don't touch that till I've done with it. There's light enough for you to
drag out your scraps."
She did drag out her scraps and a bowl of milk, which might hold
perhaps a quart. There was a fragment of bread, a morsel of cold
potato-cake, and the bone of a leg of kid. "And is that all?" said he. But
as he spoke he fleshed his teeth against the bone as a dog would have
done.
"It is the best I have," she said; "I wish it were better, and you should
have had it without violence, as you have suffered so long from
hunger."
"Bah! Better; yes! You would give the best no doubt, and set the hell
hounds on my track the moment I am gone. I know how much I might
expect from your charity."
"I would have fed you for pity's sake," she answered.
"Pity! Who are you, that you should dare to pity me! By -, my young
woman, it is I that pity you. I must cut your throat unless you give me
money. Do you know that?"
"Money! I have got no money."
"I'll make you have some before I go. Come; don't move till I have
done." And as he spoke to her he went on tugging at the bone, and
swallowing the lumps of stale bread. He had already finished the bowl

of milk. "And, now," said he, "tell me who I am."
"I suppose you are Aaron Trow," she answered, very slowly. He said
nothing on hearing this, but continued his meal, standing close to her so
that she might not possibly escape from him out into the darkness.
Twice or thrice in those few minutes she made up her mind to make
such an attempt, feeling that it would be better to leave him in
possession of the house, and make sure, if possible, of her own life.
There was no money there; not a dollar! What money her father kept in
his possession was locked up in his safe at Hamilton. And might he not
keep to his threat, and murder her, when he found that she could give
him nothing? She did not tremble outwardly, as she stood there
watching him as he ate, but she thought how probable it might be that
her last moments were very near. And yet she could scrutinise his
features, form, and garments, so as to carry away in her mind a perfect
picture of them. Aaron Trow--for of course it was the escaped
convict--was not a man of frightful, hideous aspect. Had the world used
him well, giving him when he was young ample wages and separating
him from turbulent spirits, he also might have used the world well; and
then women would have praised the brightness of his eye and the
manly vigour of his brow. But things had not gone well with him. He
had been separated from the wife he had loved, and the children who
had been raised at his knee,-- separated by his own violence; and now,
as he had said of himself, he was a wolf rather than a man. As he stood
there satisfying the craving of his appetite, breaking up the large
morsels of food, he was an object very sad to be seen. Hunger had
made him gaunt and yellow, he was squalid with the dirt of his hidden
lair, and he had the look of a beast;--that look to which men fall when
they live like the brutes of prey, as outcasts from their brethren. But
still there was that about his brow which might have redeemed
him,--which might have turned her horror into pity, had he been willing
that it should be so.
"And now give me some brandy," he said.
There was brandy in the house,--in the sitting-room which was close at
their hand, and the key of the little press which held it was in her

pocket. It was useless, she thought, to refuse him; and so she told him
that there was a bottle partly full, but that she must go to the next room
to fetch it him.
"We'll go together, my darling," he said. "There's nothing like good
company." And he again put his hand upon her arm as