Part 17 (1/2)

”Miss Dexter drove in to the Albion alongside of me yesterday, sir, and I ask her if so be she need a second lift back to-day, and she said 'no.'”

”Ah!” said Mr. Joseph. ”Yesterday, did you say? I was--to have--come out--yesterday--in answer to my brother's note--but I could not manage--it. I wish,” with a grim attempt at the old humor--”I had, 'pon my soul I do.”

”Your brother is well, I hope, sir?” said the farmer. ”Don't talk too much, I beg of ye, Mr. Joseph. To see ye with yer hands like that!”

”It is--better--easier--that way,” returned Mr. Joseph. ”My brother is well for him, thank you. You know, he is--not strong he--is--never--perfectly well.”

”D--” said the farmer to himself. ”Of course, of course, I know. I see him yesterday morning, pale like and weak, but smiling and lookin' happy enough too, I tell ye.”

”Ah, yes” said Mr. Joseph, again lying down and pressing the flowers to his hot lips. ”I--these flowers--are for him and--her.”

”Her!” said the farmer.

”Milly, you know. Ah--perhaps you haven't heard. My brother is going to--marry Milly, Mrs. c.o.x's niece, you know.”

An absolutely death-like stillness prevailed in the waggon. The Kentucky team jogged on. The stars shone down on poor Mr. Joseph turning up his sightless...o...b.. to their beauty and majesty, and on the pa.s.sion of grief and remorse that now surged in Miss Dexter's suffering breast.

”It may be vanity,” thought Farmer Wise as the bridge and the river and Dexter's Oak came in sight one after the other, ”it may be vanity, though I'm too old a man to be much given to that, but I can't help thinkin' I'm a wiser man than I was yesterday by a good lot. I don't half know what's happened, but somethin's goin' on, whether it's understandable or not to me and the likes of me, I don't know as yet, and I don't think I'll try to find out. If ifs bad it'll come out fast enough, and if it's good, leavin' it alone maybe will make it a little better. But here we are,” he continued aloud, ”at Dexter's Oak. What's to be done, Miss Dexter, now, and with you, Mr. Joseph? Of course, I'll take you straight to the Inn--as for Miss Dexter--”

”I will get out at once,” said the unhappy woman. ”You are sure you can take him to the Inn all right and--and--lift--that is--without--”

”Oh, I guess so,” said the farmer, grimly relapsing into an Americanism that was just beginning to leaven the whole country. ”I guess I'll take care on him, and as for gettin' him out at the Inn, there's plenty there. Good-night Miss Dexter, take care there!--now you're all right”

Charlotte Dexter, with a long look at the prostrate form of Mr. Joseph, leapt from the waggon and sped through the gate up to her desolate dwelling.

”Ah!” sighed the farmer to himself, one great long sigh that stirred his hardy frame to its centre. He never sighed like that again either for Charlotte Dexter or any other woman.

The next mile they traversed in silence broken only by occasional moans from Mr. Joseph which moved the old farmer to wonder and dismay that almost unnerved him.

Presently Mr. Joseph murmured some word the farmer did not catch all at once.

”Is he out of his mind on top of it all!” he said to himself, and listened.

”Farmer Wise,” said the same low voice, ”are we near the Inn?”

”Just there, Mr. Joseph.”

”On the little bridge yet?”

”Just come on it, Mr. Joseph.”

”Ah! Can you--stop your horses?”

”Certainly. There! Now what is it?” Mr. Joseph sat up.

”I am in your waggon--the market waggon, Farmer Wise, I think?”

”Yes, Mr. Joseph. You can't tell where we are, I see, being so much shook.”

”No. That's not it,” said Mr. Joseph. ”I--are you on the seat--the front seat, Farmer Wise?”