The picture of his brother, shaggy-haired and foul,
wallowing in the filth of that prison sty, and breathing its fetid
air, which his memory kept constantly before him, would have driven
him distracted, if for a moment he had allowed himself to doubt that
he should somehow liberate him, and soon. He had told his mother
nothing of the horrible condition in which he had found him. Under no
circumstances must she know of that, not even if worst came to worst,
and so even while he shuddered at the vision before his mind's eye, he
essayed to speak cheerfully about Reuben's surroundings, and his
condition of health. When she told him that Deacon Nash had refused to
let him come home to be nursed back to health, Perez had to comfort
her by pretending that he was not so very badly off where he was, and
would doubtless recover.
"Nay, Perez," she said, "my eyes are dim, come close to me, that I may
read your eyes. You were ever tender to your old mother, and I fear
me, you hide somewhat lest I should disquiet myself. Come here my
son." The brave man's eyes, that had never quailed before the belching
artillery, had now ado indeed. Such sickness at heart behind them,
such keen mother's instinct trying them before.
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