I'll do anything to oblige you, you know, even marry, if you'll find me a good, sensible woman." The old lady's eyelids dropped over her piercing black eyes, which seemed always to regard some far-off, ecstatic vision.Three small furrows ran straight up and down her forehead, and she lifted one delicate white hand to rub them out."I don't like joking on so serious a subject, my son,"she said."I'm sure Providence expects every man to do his duty, and to remain unmarried seems like putting one's personal inclination before the intentions of the Creator.Your grandfather Corbin used to say he had so high an opinion of marriage that if his fourth wife --and she was very sickly--were to die at once, he'd marry his fifth within the year.I remember that Bishop Deane remarked it was one of the most beautiful tributes ever paid the marriage state--especially as it was no idle boast, for, as it happened, his wife died shortly afterward, and he married Miss Polly Blair before six months were up." "What a precious old fool he was!" laughed the young man, as he reached the door, passing out with a horrified "What, Christopher! Your own grandfather?" ringing in his ears.In the yard he found Cynthia drawing water at the well, and he took the heavy bucket from her and carried it into the kitchen."You'd better change your clothes," she remarked, eyeing him narrowly, "if you're going back to the field." "But I'm not going back; the axe handle has broken again and I'll have to borrow Jim Weatherby's.There's no use trying to mend that old handle any more.It'll have to lie over till after tobacco cutting, when I can make a new one." "Oh, you might as well keep Jim's altogether," returned Cynthia irritably, loath to receive favours from her neighbours."The first thing we know he will be running this entire place." "Ireckon he'd make a much better job of it," replied Christopher, as he swung out into the road.On the whitewashed porch of the Weatherbys' house he found old Jacob--a hale, clearly old man with cheeks like frosted winter apples--gazing thoughtfully over his fine field of tobacco, which had grown almost to his threshold."The weather's going to have a big drop to-night," he said reflectively; "I smell it on the wind.Lord! Lord! I reckon I'd better begin on that thar tobaccy about sunup--and yet another day or so of sun and September dew would sweeten it consider'ble.How about yours, Mr.Christopher?" "I'll cut my ripest plants to-morrow," answered Christopher, sniffing the air.
"A big drop's coming, sure enough, but I don't scent frost as yet--the pines don't smell that way." They discussed the tobacco for a time--the rosy, genial old man, whom age had mellowed without souring--listening with a touching deference to his visitor's casual words; and when at last Christopher, with the axe on his shoulder, started leisurely homeward, "the drop" was already beginning, and the wind blew cool and crisp across the misty fields, beyond which a round, red sun was slowly setting.
Level, vast and dark, the tobacco swept clear to the horizon.
Between Weatherby's and the little store there was an abrupt bend in the road, where it shot aside from a steep descent in the ground; and Christopher had reached this point when he saw suddenly ahead of him a farm wagon driven forward at a reckless pace.As it neared him he heard the wheels thunder on the rocky bed of the road, and saw that the driver's seat was vacant, the man evidently having been thrown some distance back.The horses--a young pair he had never seen before--held the bits in their mouths; and it was with a hopelessness of checking their terrible speed that he stepped out of the road to give them room.
The next instant he saw that they were making straight for the declivity from which the road shot back, seeing in the same breath that the driver of the wagon, not falling clear, had entangled himself in the long reins and was being dragged rapidly beneath the wheels.Tossing his axe aside, he sprang instantly at the horses' heads, hanging with his whole powerful weight upon their mouths.Life or death was nothing to him at the moment, and he seemed to have only an impersonal interest in the multiplied sensations.What followed was a sense of incalculable swiftness, a near glimpse of blue sky, the falling of stars around him in the road, and after these things a great darkness.
When he came to himself he was lying in a patch of short grass, with a little knot of men about him, among whom he recognised Jim Weatherby."I brought them in, didn't I?" he asked, struggling up; and then he saw that his coat sleeves were rent from the armholes, leaving his arms bare beneath his torn blue shirt.
Cynthia's warning returned to him, and he laughed shortly."Well, I reckon you could bring the devil in if you put all your grip on him," was Jim's reply; "as it is, you're pretty sore, ain't you?""Oh, rather, but I wish I hadn't spoiled my coat." He was still thinking of Cynthia."God alive, man, it's a mercy you didn't spoil your life.Why, another second and the horses would have been over that bank yonder, with you and young Fletcher under the wagon."Christopher rose slowly from the ground and stood erect.
"With me--and who under the wagon?--and who?" he asked in a throaty voice.
