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Page 72
It was Hughie, his face pale and disturbed.
"Mr. O'Neill," he said, "I'm wondering if you'd drive down to the
village and telephone the doctor to come here first. Mr. Craig's had a
bad fall. He's unconscious."
"Unconscious!" exclaimed Kenny, changing color. "How on earth, Hughie,
did he fall?"
"I don't know," said Hughie sadly. "He must have climbed out of bed in
the night."
"But, Hughie, he couldn't!"
"He could stagger a step or two," explained Hughie. "Not far. The
trouble's in his spine. But he never dragged himself so far before."
"How far?"
"From his bed to his sitting room. I found him in a heap by the fire."
"Poor devil!" said Kenny, shocked.
He dressed quickly. Hannah helped him hitch the old mare to the buggy
and found him nervous and unfamiliar with his task. Kenny drove off
down the lane, oppressed by the bleak wind and the bare black tangle of
branches ahead of him. The tragic effort of Adam's wasted legs had
left him startled and uneasy. For the life of him he could not put out
of his mind the tale of the old Irish woman and the chair she had left
by the fire on the Eve of All Souls for the visit of her dead son. It
had bothered Adam Craig and made him shudder. It bothered Kenny now.
He wished he hadn't remembered it last night or to-day. But the sound
of Nellie's hoofs plodding along the soft dirt road was no more
recurrent than his own foreboding. It filled him with sadness and
guilt. Adam perhaps had dragged himself to the sitting room fire in a
drunken fit of superstition. Seeking what? Someone he had _wronged_?
The sinister spark inflamed his fancy. His brain whirled.
Inexplicably the tale of the fairy mill and the rascal who stole the
widow's bag of meal linked itself with the mishap of the night before.
Then too Adam had fallen forward in his chair unconscious.
Nellie stumbled and jolted Kenny into sanity. He put his thoughts
aside in horror. But dreadful strings of mystery converged
persistently to one point: Adam Craig, the pitiful old miser who for
some reason huddled every book in the farmhouse on his shelves. Fate
cruelly had brought melancholy into this, the first morning of his
love. Kenny shivered with resentment.
He telephoned the doctor's farm and found him ready to start his weary
ambulant day; hamlet to hamlet, farm to farm, until dusk and often
after. The bare thought of it filled Kenny with sympathetic gloom.
Then his brain began again to burn in speculation. Frowning, he turned
back homewards up the hill and through the wood, where the road lay,
rough and lonely.
With his mind upon it he evolved Nellie from her harness and led her
into the stall. When he had done with her halter he found that Joan
had slipped into the barn and stood a little way off, her soft eyes
intent upon him.
"Joan!" he exclaimed radiantly. The sight of her was like a lilac wind
in fog. The fog fled and you found the world clear and fragrant.
She came to him instantly, her face like a colorless flower, a faint
shadow in her eyes.
"Colleen!" said Kenny. He kissed her gently. Again he was conscious
with a flurried feeling of impatience that the force of his tenderness
would not rise to his lips. He whose words of love had been so fluent
and poetic!
"Hannah sent me," said Joan. "She was afraid you wouldn't know how to
get Nellie out of the shafts. Oh, Kenny!" There was quick compassion
in her eyes.
"Let's not think of sorrowful things, dear!" said Kenny swiftly. "I
dreamed of a lantern."
"And I," said Joan, the rich rose tints he loved flaming in her face,
"I dreamed of you."
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