His voice, with a little tremor in it, emboldened Levin
Dennis also to speak:
"Look out for fevernager this month, Mr. Milburn!"
Meshach bowed his head, gliding along as if bashfully anxious to pass.
"Nice weather for drivin'!" added Jack Wonnell, having also taken off
his own tile of frivolity, to feel the effect; but this remark was
regarded by the group as too forward, and a low chorus ran round of
"Jack Wonnell can't help bein' a fool to save his life!"
Milburn said to himself, passing on: "Are those voices kinder than
usually, or am I more timid? What is it in the air that makes everything
so acute, and my cheeks to tingle? Am I sick, or is it Love?"
The word frightened him, and the sand under his feet seemed to crack; a
woodpecker in an old tree tapped as if it was the tree's old heart
quickened by something; the houses all around looked like live objects,
with their windows fixed upon his walk, like married folks' eyes. As he
came in sight of Judge Custis's residence, so expressive of old respect
and long intentions, the money-lender almost stopped, so mild and
peacefully it looked at him--so undisturbed, while he was palpitating.
"Why this pain?" thought Milburn. "Am I afraid? That house is mine. Do I
fear to enter my own? And yet it does not fear me. It has been there so
long that it has no fears, and every window in it faces benignant to my
coming. The three gables survey yonder forest landscape like three old
magistrates on the bench, administering justice to a county where never
till now was there a ravisher!"
The thought produced a moment's intellectual pride in him, like lawless
power's uneasy paroxysm.
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