Holmes turned down one of the back streets: he was going to see
Lois, first of all. I hardly know why: the child's angel may
have touched him, too; or his heart, full of a yearning pity for
the poor cripple, who, he believed now, had given her own life
for his, may have plead for indulgence, as men remember their
childish prayers, before going into battle. He came at last, in
the quiet lane where she lived, to her little brown frame-shanty,
to which you mounted by a flight of wooden steps: there were two
narrow windows at the top, hung with red curtains; he could hear
her feeble voice singing within. As he turned to go up the
steps, he caught sight of something crouched underneath them in
the dark, hiding from him: whether a man or a dog he could not
see. He touched it.
"What d' ye want, Mas'r?" said a stifled voice.
He touched it again with his stick. The man stood upright, back
in the shadow: it was old Yare.
"Had ye any word wi' me, Mas'r?"
He saw the negro's face grow gray with fear.
"Come out, Yare," he said, quietly. "Any word? What word is
arson, eh?"
The man did not move. Holmes touched him with the stick.
"Come out," he said.
He came out, looking gaunt, as with famine.
"I'll not flurr myself," he said, crunching his ragged hat in his
hands,--"I'll not."
He drove the hat down upon his head, and looked up with a sullen
fierceness.
"Yoh've got me, an' I'm glad of 't. I'm tired, fearin'. I was
born for hangin', they say," with a laugh.
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