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Life was still very hard for him at this time. He has given us a moving sketch of it in his story entitled: "Once in Autumn." The hero, who is none other than the author himself, passes the night under an old, upturned boat, in the company of a prostitute who is just as poor and just as abandoned as himself. They have broken into a booth in order to steal enough bread to keep them from starving.
They saw in those gray and careworn faces, in those old clothes interspersed now and then with a faded gray uniform, the men who in the ardor of their youth had, for the South, faced death undaunted on a hundred fields, and had never even thought it great; men who had looked immortality in the eyes, yet had been thrown down and trampled underfoot, and who were greater in their overthrow than when glory poured her light upon their upturned faces.
There is a moment when he beholds the thousands of upturned faces, the throngs of people in the street, at the windows and on the housetops, teams moving lazily hither and thither, and amid all a confused fluttering of leaves, frightened birds, waving flags and handkerchiefs, and a general commotion quite indescribable.
But before he had the time to say a word either to quiet his fear or dissipate his conjecture, Zulma moved slowly from her place and dropped softly before his knees. All the color of her face, as she upturned it to his, was gone, but there was a melting pathos in those blue eyes which fascinated the old man. "Papa," she said, "will you allow me to ask you a favor?"
The bedstead on which the wounded man reclined was curiously carved, with a figure of the Virgin at the head, and adorned with draperies, in which were wrought huge figures from scriptural subjects, but in the dress of the date of Richard II., Solomon in pointed upturned shoes, and Goliath, in the armour of a crusader, frowning grimly upon the sufferer.
"My name's Chillingwood Robb Chillingwood. This is Mr. Leslie Grey, Customs officer. I am his assistant." The long man glanced slowly at his guests. His great eyes seemed to take in the details of each man's appearance with solemn curiosity. Then he twisted slowly upon the upturned box on which he was seated and crossed his legs. "I'm pleased to meet you, gentlemen.
David drew his daughter along, out of the barn, across the snowy yard to the house, she pleading frantically all the way, he soothing her with his sudden wisdom of assent and evasion. The hearth fire was blazing high when Madelon entered the kitchen. The red glare of it was on her white face, upturned to her father's with one last pleading of despair.
"P'raps not," suggested Poopy, with a look of deep wisdom, as she gazed on the upturned face. "Anyhow, we must haul him out of the water," said Corrie, whose chest heaved with the effort he made to repress his tears. Catching up one of Bumpus's huge hands, the boy ordered Alice to grasp the other.
An instant before, the girl, sore and bruised in every fibre, she only half knew why, was thirsting that this man might somehow offer her his neck that she might trample on it. He offers it, and the angry instinct wavers, as a man wavers in a wrestling match when his opponent unexpectedly gives ground. She paused, she turned her white throat. His eyes upturned met hers.
She seemed to yield unconsciously, her head upon my shoulder, her face upturned to the stars, while slowly all the intense fatigue of the day and night stupified mind and body. Almost before I realized her weariness, the eyes were closed and she was sleeping in my arms. I held her closely, so awakened by what had passed between us, as to feel no desire to sleep myself. Dorothy Fairfax loved me.
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