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Page 80
James went to sleep, wondering how she would treat him the next day. He
never knew, for the girl shifted like a weather-cock, driven hither and
yon by her love and terror like two winds. The next day, however, solved
the problem in an entirely unexpected fashion. James, that morning after
breakfast, during which Clemency had sat pale and stern behind the
coffee-urn, and scarcely had noticed him, set off on a round of calls.
Doctor Gordon, to his surprise, announced his intention of making some
calls himself; he said that he would take the team, and James must drive
the balky mare, as the bay was to be taken to the blacksmith's. Gordon
that morning looked worse than usual, although he evinced such unwonted
energy. He trembled like a very old man. He ate scarcely anything, and
his mouth was set hard with a desperate expression. James wished to urge
him to remain at home, but he did not dare. Gordon, when he left the
breakfast-table, proposed that James should take Clemency with him, but
the girl replied curtly that she was too busy. Gordon started on his
long circuit, and James set off to make the rounds of Alton and
Westover. The mare seemed in a very favorable mood that morning. She did
not balk, and went at a good pace. It was not until James was on his
homeward road that the trouble began. Then the mare planted her four
feet at angles, in her favorite fashion, and became as immovable as a
horse of bronze. James touched her with the whip. He was in no patient
mood that morning. Finally he lashed her. He might as well have lashed a
stone, for all the effect his blows had. Then he got out and tried
coaxing. She did not seem to even see him. Her great eyes had a curious
introspective expression. Then he got again into the buggy and sat
still. A sense of obstinacy as great as the animal's came over him.
"Stand there and be d----d!" he said.
"Go without your dinner if you want to." He leaned back in a corner of
the buggy, and began reflecting.
His reflections were at once angry and gloomy. He was, he told himself,
tired of the situation. He began to wonder if he ought not, for the sake
of self-respect, to leave Alton and Clemency. He wondered if a man ought
to submit to be so treated, and yet he recognized Clemency's own view of
the situation, and a great wave of love and pity for the poor child
swept over him. The mare had halted in a part of the road where there
were no houses, and flowering alders filled the air with their faint
sweetness. Under that sweetness, like the bass in a harmony, he could
smell the pines in the woods on either hand. He also heard their voices,
like the waves of the sea. It was a very warm day, one of those days in
which Spring makes leaps toward Summer. James felt uncomfortably heated,
for the buggy was in the full glare of sunlight. All his solace came
from the fact that he himself, sitting there so quietly, was outwitting
the mare by showing as great obstinacy as her own. He knew that she
inwardly fretted at not arousing irritation. That a tickle, even a lash
of the whip, would delight her. He sat still, leaning his head back. He
was almost asleep when he heard a rumble of heavy wheels, and looking
ahead languidly perceived a wagon laden with household goods of some
spring-flitters approaching. He sat still and watched the great wagon
drawn by two lean, white horses, and piled high with the poor household
belongings--miserable wooden chairs and feather beds, and a child's
cradle rocking imminently on the top. A lank Jerseyman was driving. By
his side on the high seat was his stout wife holding a baby. The weak
wail of the child filled the air. James looked to make sure that there
was room for the team to pass. He thought there was, and sat idly
watching them. The woman looked at him, made some remark to the man, and
then both grinned weakly, recognizing the situation. The man on the team
drove carefully, but a stone on the outer side caused his team to swerve
a trifle. The wheels hit the wheels of the buggy, and the cradle tilted
swiftly on to the back of the balky mare, and she bolted. In all her
experience of a long, balky life, a cradle as a means of breaking her
spirit had not been encountered. James had not time to clutch the lines
which had fallen to the floor of the buggy before he was thrown out. He
felt the buggy tilting to its fall, he heard a crashing sound and a
fierce kicking, and then he knew no more.
When he came to himself he was on the lounge in Doctor Gordon's office.
Emma was just disappearing with a pitcher in the direction of the
kitchen, and he felt something cool on his forehead. He smelled aromatic
salts, and heard a piteous little voice, like the bleat of a wounded
lamb, in his ears, and kisses on his cheeks, and a soft hand rubbing his
own. "Oh, darling," the little voice was saying, "oh, darling, are you
much hurt? Are you? Please speak to me. It is Clemency. Oh, he is dead!
He is dead!" Then came wild sobs, and Emma rushed into the room, and he
heard her say, "Here, put this ice on his head, quick!"
James was still so faint that he could only gasp weakly. And he could
open his eyes to nothing but darkness and a marvellous spinning and whir
as of shadows in a wind.
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