Chapter 10

"Why, what more could you ask? You wouldn't have me wipe it _six_ times a day, would you?"

"I wonder it didn't poison you," commented Mrs. Welsh.

"Takes more'n that to poison a student," laughed Albert, as he went out.

The next afternoon he came bursting into the kitchen, where Maud stood with her sleeves rolled up, deep in the dishpan.

"Don't you want a sleigh-ride?" he asked, boyishly eager.

She looked up with shining eyes.

"Oh, wouldn't I! Can you get along, mother?"

"Certainly, child. Go on. The air will do you good."

"W'y, Maud!" said the little girl, "you said you didn't want to when Ed--"

Mrs. Welsh silenced her, and said:

"Run right along, dear; it's just the nicest time o' day. Are there many teams out?"

"They're just beginning to come out," said Albert. "I'll have a cutter around here in about two jiffies; be on hand, sure."

Troutt was standing in the sunny doorway of his stable when the young fellow dashed up to him.

"Hullo, Uncle Troutt! Harness your fastest nag into your swellest outfit instanter."

"Aha! Goin' t' take y'r girl out, hey?"

"Yes; and I want to do it in style."

"I guess ol' Dan's the horse for you. Gentle as a kitten and as knowin' as a fox. Drive him with one hand--left hand." The old man laughed till his long, faded beard flapped up and down and quivered with the stress of his enjoyment of his joke. He ended by hitching a vicious-looking sorrel to a gay, duck-bellied cutter, saying, as he gave up the reins:

"Now, be keerful. Dan's foxy; he's all right when he sees you've got the reins, but don't drop 'em."

"Don't you worry about me; I grew up with horses," said the over-confident youth, leaping into the sleigh and gathering up the lines. "Stand aside, my lord, and let the cortége pass. Hoop-la!"

The brute gave a tearing lunge, and was out of the doorway before the old man could utter another word. Albert thrilled with pleasure as he felt the reins stiffen in his hands, and saw the traces swing slack beside the thills.

"If he keeps this up he'll do," he said aloud.

As he turned up at the gate Maud came gayly down the path, muffled to the eyes.

"Oh, what a nice cutter! But the horse--is he gentle?" she asked, as she climbed in.

"As a cow," Albert replied.--"Git out o' this, Bones!"

The main street was already filled with wood sleighs, bob-sleds filled with children, and men in light cutters, out for a race. Laughter was on the air, and the jingle-jangle of bells. The sun was dazzling in its brightness, and the gay wraps and scarfs lighted up the scene with flecks of color. Loafers on the sidewalks fired familiar phrases at the teams as they passed:

"Step up, Bones!"

"Let 'er _go_, Gallagher!"

"Get there, Eli," and the like.

But what cared the drivers? If the shouts were insolent they laid them to envy, and if they were pleasant they smiled in reply.

Albert and Maud had made two easy turns up and down the street when a man driving a span of large Black Hawk horses dashed up a side street and whirled in just before them. The man was a superb driver, and sat with the reins held carelessly but securely in his left hand, guiding the team more by his voice than by the bit.

"_Hel_-lo!" cried Bert; "that looks like Brann."

"It is," said Maud.

"Cracky! that's a fine team--Black Hawks, both of them. I wonder if ol' sorrel can pass 'em?"

"Oh, please don't try!" pleaded the girl.

"Why not?"

"Because--because I'm afraid."

"Afraid of what?"

"Afraid something 'll happen."

"Something _is_ sure to happen; I'm goin' to pass him if old Bones has any _git_ to him."

"It'll make him mad."

"Who mad? Brann?"

"Yes."

"Well, s'pose it does, who cares?"

There were a dozen similar rigs moving up or down the street, and greetings passed from sleigh to sleigh. Everybody except Brann welcomed Albert with sincere pleasure, and exchanged rustic jokes with him. As they slowed up at the upper end of the street and began to turn, a man on the sidewalk said, confidentially:

"Say, cap', if you handle that old rack o' bones just right, he'll distance anything on this road. When you want him to do his best let him have the rein; don't pull a pound. I used to own 'im--I know 'im."

The old sorrel came round "gauming," his ugly head thrown up, his great red mouth open, his ears laid back. Brann and the young doctor of the place were turning together, a little farther up the street. The blacks, responding to their driver's word, came down with flying hoofs, their great glossy breasts flecked with foam, their jaws champing.

"Come on, crow-bait!" yelled Brann, insultingly, as he came down past the doctor, and seemed about to pass Albert and Maud. There was hate in the glare of his eyes.

But he did not pass. The old sorrel seemed to lengthen; to the spectators his nose appeared to be glued to the glossy side of Brann's off black.

"See them blacks trot!" shouted Albert, in ungrammatical enthusiasm.

"See that old sorrel shake himself!" yelled the loafers.

The doctor came tearing down with a spirited bay, a magnificent stepper. As he drew along so that Bert could catch a glimpse of the mare's neck, he thrilled with delight. There was the thoroughbred's lacing of veins; the proud fling of her knees and the swell of her neck showed that she was far from doing her best. There was a wild light in her eyes.

These were the fast teams of the town. All interest was centred in them.

"Clear the track!" yelled the loafers.

"The doc's good f'r 'em."

"If she don't break."

Albert was pulling at the sorrel heavily, absorbed in seeing, as well as he could for the flung snowballs, the doctor's mare draw slowly, foot by foot, past the blacks. Suddenly Brann gave a shrill yell and stood up in his sleigh. The gallant little bay broke and fell behind; Brann laughed, the blacks trotted on, their splendid pace unchanged.

"Let the sorrel out!" yelled somebody.

"Let him loose!" yelled Troutt on the corner, quivering with excitement. "Let him go!"

Albert, remembering what the fellow had said, let the reins loose. The old sorrel's teeth came together with a snap; his head lowered and his tail rose; he shot abreast of the blacks. Maud, frightened into silence, covered her head with the robe to escape the flying snow. The sorrel drew steadily ahead and was passing the blacks when Brann turned.

"Durn y'r old horse!" he yelled through his shut teeth, and laid the whip across the sorrel's hips. The blacks broke wildly, but, strange to say, the old sorrel increased his speed. Again Brann struck, but the lash fell on Bert's outstretched wrists. He did not see that the blacks were crowding him to the gutter, but he heard a warning cry.

"Look _out_, there!"

Before he could turn to look, the cutter seemed to be blown up by a bomb. He rose in the air like a vaulter, and when he fell the light went out.

The next that he heard was a curious soft murmur of voices, out of which a sweet, agonized girl-voice broke:

"Oh, where's the doctor? He's dead--oh, he's dead! _Can't_ you hurry?"

Next came a quick, authoritative voice, still far away, and a hush followed it; then an imperative order:

"Stand out o' the way! What do you think you can do by crowding on top of him?"

"Stand back! stand back!" other voices called.

Then he felt something cold on his scalp: they were taking his cap off and putting snow on his head; then the doctor--he knew him now--said:

"Let me take him!"

A dull, throbbing ache came into his head, and as this grew the noise of voices became more distinct, and he could hear sobbing. Then he opened his lids, but the glare of the sunlight struck them shut again; he saw only Maud's face, agonized, white, and wet with tears, looking down into his.

They raised him a little more, and he again opened his eyes on the circle of hushed and excited men thronging about him. He saw Brann, with wild, scared face, standing in his cutter and peering over the heads of the crowd.

"How do you feel now?" asked the doctor.

"Can you hear us? Albert, do you know me?" called the girl.

His lips moved stiffly, but he smiled a little, and at length whispered slowly, "Yes; I guess--I'm all--right."

"Put him into my cutter; Maud, get in here, too," the doctor commanded. The crowd opened as the doctor and Troutt helped the wounded man into the sleigh. The pain in his head grew worse, but Albert's perception of things sharpened in proportion; he closed his eyes to the sun, but in the shadow of Maud's breast opened them again and looked up at her. He felt a vague, child-like pleasure in knowing that she was holding him in her arms; he thought of his mother--"how it would frighten her if she knew."

"Hello!" called a breathless, hearty voice, "what the deuce y' been doing with my pardner? Bert, old fellow, are you there?" Hartley asked, clinging to the edge of the moving cutter, and peering into his friend's face. Albert smiled.

"I'm here--what there is left of me," he replied, faintly.

"Glory! How did it happen?" he asked of the girl.

"I don't know--I couldn't see--we ran into a culvert," replied Maud.

"Weren't you hurt?"

"Not a bit. I stayed in the cutter."

Albert groaned, and tried to rise, but the girl gently yet firmly restrained him. Hartley was walking beside the doctor, talking loudly. "It was a devilish thing to do; the scoundrel ought to be jugged!"

Albert tried again to rise. "I'm bleeding yet; I'm soaking you; let me get up!"

The girl shuddered, but remained firm.

"No; we're 'most home."

She felt no shame, but a certain exaltation as she looked into the faces about her. She gazed unrecognizingly upon her nearest girl friends, and they, gazing upon her white face and unresponsive eyes, spoke in awed whispers.

At the gate the crowd gathered and waited with deepest interest. It was enthralling romance to them.

"Ed Brann done it," said one.

"How?" asked another.

"With the butt end of his whip."

"That's a lie! His team ran into Lohr's rig."

"Not much; Ed crowded him into the ditch."

"What fer?"

"Cause Bert cut him out with Maud."

"Come, get out of the way! Don't stand there gabbing," yelled Hartley, as he took Albert in his arms and, together with the doctor, lifted him out of the sleigh.

"Goodness sakes alive! Ain't it terrible! How is he?" asked an old lady, peering at him as he passed.

On the porch stood Mrs. Welsh, supported by Ed Brann.

"She's all right, I tell you. He ain't hurt much, either; just stunned a little, that's all."

"Maud! child!" cried the mother, as Maud appeared, followed by a bevy of girls.

"_I'm_ all right, mother," she said, running into the trembling arms outstretched toward her; "but, oh, poor Albert!"

After the wounded man disappeared into the house the crowd dispersed. Brann went off by the way of the alley; he was not prepared to meet the questions of his accusers.

"Now, what in ---- you been up to?" was the greeting of his brother, as he re-entered the shop.

"Nothing."

"Welting a man on the head with a whip-stock ain't anything, hey?"

"I didn't touch him. We was racing, and he run into the culvert."

"Hank says he saw you strike him."

"He lies! I was strikin' the horse to make him break!"

"Oh, yeh was!" sneered the older man. "Well, I hope you understand that this'll ruin you in this town. If you didn't strike him, they'll say you run him into the culvert, 'n' every man, woman, 'n' child'll be down on you, and _me_ f'r bein' related to you. They all know how you feel toward him for cuttin' you out with Maud Welsh."

"Oh, don't bear down on him too hard, Joe. He didn't mean t' do any harm," said Troutt, who had followed Ed down to the store. "I guess the young feller 'll come out all right. Just go kind o' easy till we see how he turns out. If he dies, why, it'll haf t' be looked into."

Ed turned pale and swallowed hastily. "If he should die I'll be a murderer," he thought. He acknowledged that hate was in his heart, and he shivered as he remembered the man's white face with the bright red stream flowing down behind his ear and over his cheek. It almost seemed to him that he _had_ struck him, so close had the accident followed upon the fall of his whip.

III

Albert sank into a feverish sleep that night, with a vague perception of four figures in the room--Maud, her mother, Hartley, and the young doctor. When he awoke fully in the morning his head felt prodigiously hot and heavy.

It was early dawn, and the lamp was burning brightly. Outside, a man's feet could be heard on the squealing snow--a sound which told how still and cold it was. A team passed with a jingle of bells.

Albert raised his head and looked about. Hartley was lying on the sofa, rolled up in his overcoat and some extra quilts. He had lain down at last, worn with watching. Albert felt a little weak, and fell back on his pillow, thinking about the strange night he had passed--a night more filled with strange happenings than the afternoon.

As the light grew in the room his mind cleared, and lifting his muscular arm he opened and shut his hand, saying aloud, in his old boyish manner:

"I guess I'm all here."

"What's that?" called Hartley, rolling out of bed. "Did you ask for anything?"

"Give me some water, Jim; my mouth is dry as a powder-mill."

"How yeh feelin', anyway, pardner?" said Hartley, as he brought the water.

"First-rate, Jim; I guess I'll be all right."

"Well, I guess you'd better keep quiet."

He threw on his coat next, and went out into the kitchen, returning soon with some hot water, with which he began to bathe his partner's face and hands as tenderly as a woman.

"There; now I guess you're in shape f'r grub--feel any like grub?--Come in," he called, in answer to a knock on the door.

Mrs. Welsh entered.

"How is he?" she whispered, anxiously.

"Oh, I'm all right," replied Albert.

"I'm glad to find you so much better," she said, going to his bedside. "I've hardly slep', I was so much worried about you. Your breakfast is ready, Mr. Hartley. I've got something special for Albert."

A few minutes later Maud entered with a platter, followed closely by her mother.

The girl came forward timidly, but when Albert turned his eyes on her and called, cheerily, "Good morning!" she flamed out in rosy color and recoiled. She had expected to see him pale, dull-eyed, and with a weak voice, but there was little to indicate invalidism in his firm greeting. She gave place to Mrs. Welsh, who prepared his breakfast. She was smitten dumb by his tone, and hardly dared look at him as he sat propped up in bed.

However, though he was feeling absurdly well, there was a good deal of bravado in his tone and manner, for he ate but little, and soon sank back on the bed.

"I feel better when my head is low," he explained, in a faint voice.

"Can't I do something?" asked the girl, her courage reviving as she perceived how ill and faint he really was.

"I guess you better write to his folks," said Mrs. Welsh.

"No, don't do that," he protested, opening his eyes; "it will only worry them, and do me no good. I'll be all right in a few days. You needn't waste your time on me; Hartley will wait on me."

"Don't mind him," said Mrs. Welsh. "I'm his mother now, and he's goin' to do just as I tell him to--aren't you, Albert?"

He dropped his eyelids in assent, and went off into a doze. It was all very pleasant to be thus waited upon. Hartley was devotion itself, and the doctor removed his bandages with the care and deliberation of a man with a moderate practice; besides, he considered Albert a personal friend.

Hartley, after the doctor had gone, said with some hesitation:

"Well, now, pard, I _ought_ to go out and see a couple o' fellows I promised t' meet this morning."

"All right, Jim; all right. You go right ahead on business; I'm goin' t' sleep, anyway, and I'll be all right in a day or two."

"Well, I will; but I'll run in every hour 'r two and see if you don't want something. You're in good hands, anyway, when I'm gone."

* * * * *

"Won't you read to me?" pleaded Albert, one afternoon, when Maud came in with her mother to brush up the room. "It's getting rather slow business layin' here like this."

"Shall I, mother?"

"Why, of course, Maud."

So Maud got a book, and sat down over by the stove, quite distant from the bed, and read to him from _The Lady of the Lake_, while the mother, like a piece of tireless machinery, moved about the house at the never-ending succession of petty drudgeries which wear the heart and soul out of so many wives and mothers, making life to them a pilgrimage from stove to pantry, from pantry to cellar, and from cellar to garret--a life that deadens and destroys, coarsens and narrows, till the flesh and bones are warped to the expression of the wronged and cheated soul.

Albert's selfishness was in a way excusable. He enjoyed beyond measure the sound of the girl's soft voice and the sight of her graceful head bent over the page. He lay, looking and listening dreamily, till the voice and the sunlit head were lost in a deep, sweet sleep.

The girl sat with closed book, looking at his face as he slept. It was a curious study to her, a young man--_this_ young man, asleep. His brown lashes lay on his cheek as placid as those of a child. As she looked she gained courage to go over softly and peer down on him. How boyish he seemed! How little to be feared! A boy outside uttered a shout, and she hurried away, pale and breathless. As she paused in the door and looked back at the undisturbed sleeper, she smiled, and the pink came back into her thin face.

Albert's superb young blood began to assert itself, and on the afternoon of the fifth day he was able to sit in his rocking-chair before the fire and read a little, though he professed that his eyes were not strong, in order that Maud should read for him. This she did as often as she could leave her other work, which was "not half often enough," the invalid grumbled.

"More than you deserve," she found courage to say.

Hartley let nothing interfere with the book business. "You take it easy," he repeated. "Don't you worry--your pay goes on just the same. You're doing well right where you are. By jinks! biggest piece o' luck," he went on, half in earnest. "Why, I can't turn around without taking an order--fact! Turned in a book on the livery bill, so that's all fixed. We'll make a clear hundred dollars out o' that little bump o' yours."

"Little bump! Say, now, that's--"

"Keep it up--put it on! Don't hurry about getting well. I don't need you to canvass, and I guess you enjoy being waited on." He ended with a sly wink and cough.

Yes, convalescence was delicious, with Maud reading to him, bringing his food, and singing for him; all that marred his peace was the stream of people who came to inquire how he was getting along. The sympathy was largely genuine, as Hartley could attest, but it bored the invalid. He had rather be left in quiet with Walter Scott and Maud. In the light of common day the accident was hurrying to be a dream.

At the end of a week he was quite himself again, though he still had difficulty in wearing his hat. It was not till the second Sunday after the accident that he appeared in the dining-room for the first time, with a large travelling-cap concealing the suggestive bandages. He looked pale and thin, but his eyes danced with joy.

Maud's eyes dilated with instant solicitude. The rest sprang up in surprise, with shouts of delight, as hearty as brethren.

"Ginger! I'm glad t' see yeh!" said Troutt, so sincerely that he looked almost winning to the boy. The rest crowded around, shaking hands.

"Oh, I'm on deck again."

Ed Brann came in a moment later with his brother, and there was a significant little pause--a pause which grew painful till Albert turned and saw Brann, and called out:

"Hello, Ed! How are you? Didn't know you were here."

As he held out his hand, Brann, his face purple with shame and embarrassment, lumbered heavily across the room and took it, muttering some poor apology.

"Hope y' don't blame me."

"Of course not--fortunes o' war. Nobody to blame; just my carelessness.--Yes; I'll take turkey," he said to Maud, as he sank into the seat of honor.

The rest laughed, but Brann remained standing near Albert's chair. He had not finished yet.

"I'm mighty glad you don't lay it up against me, Lohr; an' I want to say the doctor's bill is all right; you un'erstand, it's _all right_."

Albert looked at him a moment in surprise. He understood that this, coming from a man like Brann, meant more than a thousand prayers from a ready apologist. It was a terrible victory, and he was disposed to make it as easy for his rival as he could.

"Oh, all right, Ed; only I'd calculated to cheat him out o' part of it--I'd planned to turn in a couple o' Blaine's _Twenty Years_ on the bill."

Hartley roared, and the rest joined in, but not even Albert perceived all that it meant. It meant that the young savage had surrendered his claim in favor of the man he had all but killed. The struggle had been prodigious, but he had snatched victory out of defeat; his better nature had conquered.

No one ever gave him credit for it; and when he went West in the spring, people said his passion for Maud had been superficial. In truth, he had loved the girl as sincerely as he had hated his rival. That he could rise out of the barbaric in his love and his hate was heroic.

When Albert went to ride again, it was on melting snow, with the slowest horse Troutt had. Maud was happier than she had been since she left school, and fuller of color and singing. She dared not let a golden moment pass now without hearing it ring full, and she dared not think how short this day of happiness might be.

IV

At the end of the fifth week of their stay in Tyre a suspicion of spring was in the wind as it swept the southern exposure of the valley. March was drawing to a close, and there was more than a suggestion of April in the rapidly melting snow which still lay on the hills and under the cedars and tamaracks in the swamps. Patches of green grass, appearing on the sunny side of the road where the snow had melted, led to predictions of spring from the loafers beginning to sun themselves on the salt-barrels and shoe-boxes outside the stores.

A group sitting about the blacksmith shop were discussing it.

"It's an early seedin'--now mark my words," said Troutt, as he threw his knife into the soft ground at his feet. "The sun is crossing the line earlier this spring than it did last."

"Yes; an' I heard a crow to-day makin' that kind of a--a spring noise that sort o'--I d' know what--kind o' goes all through a feller."

"And there's Uncle Sweeney, an' that settles it; spring's comin' sure!" said Troutt, pointing at an old man, much bent, hobbling down the street. "When _he_ gits out the frogs ain't fur behind."

"We'll be gittin' on to the ground by next Monday," said Sam Dingley to a crowd who were seated on the newly painted harrows and seeders which Svend & Johnson had got out ready for the spring trade. "Svend & Johnson's Agricultural Implement Depot" was on the north side of the street, and on a spring day the yard was one of the pleasantest loafing-places that could be imagined, especially if one wished company.

Albert wished to be alone. Something in the touch and tone of this spring afternoon made him restless and inclined to strange thoughts. He took his way out along the road which followed the river-bank, and in the outskirts of the village threw himself down on a bank of grass which the snows had protected, and which had already a tinge of green because of its wealth of sun.

The willows had thrown out their tiny light-green flags, though their roots were under the ice, and some of the hardwood twigs were tinged with red. There was a faint but magical odor of uncovered earth in the air, and the touch of the wind was like a caress from a moist, magnetic hand.