There was one flash of
despair, and then nothing but a stony blank, behind which he masked his
real feelings, whatever they were.

Human character is a compound of tendencies inherited and habits
acquired. In the anxiety, the fear of disgrace, spoke the nineteenth
century civilization with which Ben Davis had been more or less closely
in touch during twenty years of slavery and fifteen years of freedom. In
the stolidity with which he received this sentence for a crime which he
had not committed, spoke who knows what trait of inherited savagery? For
stoicism is a savage virtue.

IV

One morning in June, five years later, a black man limped slowly along
the old Lumberton plank road; a tall man, whose bowed shoulders made him
seem shorter than he was, and a face from which it was difficult to
guess his years, for in it the wrinkles and flabbiness of age were found
side by side with firm white teeth, and eyes not sunken,--eyes
bloodshot, and burning with something, either fever or passion. Though
he limped painfully with one foot, the other hit the ground
impatiently, like the good horse in a poorly matched team. As he walked
along, he was talking to himself:----

"I wonder what dey 'll do w'en I git back? I wonder how Nancy 's
s'ported the fambly all dese years? Tuck in washin', I s'ppose,--she was
a monst'us good washer an' ironer. I wonder ef de chillun 'll be too
proud ter reco'nize deir daddy come back f'um de penetenchy? I 'spec'
Billy must be a big boy by dis time. He won' b'lieve his daddy ever
stole anything. I 'm gwine ter slip roun' an' s'prise 'em."

Five minutes later a face peered cautiously into the window of what had
once been Ben Davis's cabin,--at first an eager face, its coarseness lit
up with the fire of hope; a moment later a puzzled face; then an
anxious, fearful face as the man stepped away from the window and rapped
at the door.

"Is Mis' Davis home?" he asked of the woman who opened the door.

"Mis' Davis don' live here. You er mistook in de house."

"Whose house is dis?"

"It b'longs ter my husban', Mr. Smith,--Primus Smith."

"'Scuse me, but I knowed de house some years ago w'en I wuz here oncet
on a visit, an' it b'longed ter a man name' Ben Davis."

"Ben Davis--Ben Davis?--oh yes, I 'member now. Dat wuz de gen'man w'at
wuz sent ter de penitenchy fer sump'n er nuther,--sheep-stealin', I
b'lieve. Primus," she called, "w'at wuz Ben Davis, w'at useter own dis
yer house, sent ter