قراءة كتاب The Splendid Fairing

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‏اللغة: English
The Splendid Fairing

The Splendid Fairing

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
الصفحة رقم: 6

came up over their shoulders and car wheels against their knees, without disturbing either their conversation or their nerves. Sheepdogs hung closely at their masters' heels, or slipped with a cocked eye between the hoofs. The shops were full, but those who wandered outside to wait could always find a friend to fill their time. Simon's personal cronies jerked their heads at him as he passed, and the busy matrons nodded a greeting as they hurried in front of the horse's nose.

He made as if to draw up at the house of a well-known doctor in the town, but Sarah stopped him before he reached the kerb. "Nay, nay," she said nervously, "it'll likely bide. I don't know as I'm that fain to hear what he's got to say. Anyway, I'd a deal sooner get my marketing done first."

So instead of stopping they went straight to the inn where they had put up on market-day for the last forty years, and where Simon's father had put up before Simon was born. Turning suddenly across the pavement through a narrow entry, they plunged sharply downhill into a sloping yard. The back premises of old houses shut it in on every side, lifting their top windows for a glimpse of the near moor. The inn itself, small and dark, with winding staircases and innumerable doors, had also this sudden vision of a lone, high world against the sky.

An ancient ostler came to help Simon with the horse, while Sarah waited on the sloping stones. The steep yard was full of traps, pushed under sheds or left in the open with their shafts against the ground. Fleming's dog-cart was there, with its neat body and light wheels; but May was already gone on her business in the town. Simon had an affection for a particular spot of his own, and it always put him about to find it filled. It was taken this morning, he found, though not by May. May would never have played him a trick like that. It was a car that was standing smugly in Simon's place, with a doubled-up driver busy about its wheels. Cars were always intruders in the cobbled old yard, but it was a personal insult to find one in his 'spot.' He went and talked to the driver about it in rising tones, and the driver stood on his head and made biting comments between his feet. A man came to one of the inn windows while the scene was on, and listened attentively to the feast of reason and the flow of soul.

Sarah looked rather white and shaky by the time Simon returned, thinking of something new to say to the very last. He left the newest and best unsaid, however, when he saw her face.

"You'd best set down for a bit," he observed, leading her anxiously towards the inn. "You're fretting yourself about seeing doctor, that's what it is. You'd ha' done better to call as we come in."

But Sarah insisted that she was not troubling about the doctor in the least. She had been right as a bobbin, she said, and then she had suddenly come over all queer. "Happen it's standing that long while you and morter-man sauced each other about car!" she added, with shaky spirit. "You made a terble song about it, I'm sure. Trap'll do well enough where it is."

"I can't abide they morter-folk!" Simon muttered, crestfallen but still vexed. "But never mind about yon. Gang in and set you down. If I happen across May, I'll tell her to look you up."

A door opened at the end of the dark passage, showing a warm parlour with flowers and crimson blinds. The stout landlady came swimming towards them, speaking as she swam, so that the vibrations of her welcoming voice reached them first like oncoming waves. Another door opened in the wall on the right, and a man looked out from the dim corner behind.

"That you, Mrs. Thornthet? What?--not so well? Nay, now, it'll never do to start market-day feeling badly, I'm sure! Come along in and rest yourself by t'fire, and a cup of tea'll happen set you right."

Sarah, shaken and faint, and longing to sit down, yet hesitated as if afraid to step inside. It seemed to her, as she paused, that there was some ordeal in front of her which she could not face. Her heart beat and her throat was dry, and though she longed to go in, she was unable to stir. The man inside saw her against a background of misty yard, a white face and homely figure dressed in threadbare black. Once or twice his gaze left her to dwell on Simon, but it was always to the more dramatic figure that it returned. There was a current in the passage, full and sweeping like the wind that went before the still, small Voice of God. Sarah was caught by it, urged forward, filled with it with each breath. But even as she lifted her foot she heard a woman's voice in the room beyond.

"We've Mrs. Will here an' all," the landlady called, as she swam away. "She'll see to you if there's anything you want, I'm sure."

She might just as well have slammed and locked the door in the old folks' teeth. At once they made a simultaneous movement of recoil, stiffening themselves as if against attack. The spirit in the passage died down, leaving it filled to the ceiling with that heavy, chattering voice. Sarah was well away from the doorstep before she opened her mouth.

"Nay, I don't know as I won't go right on, thank ye, Mrs. Bond. I'm feeling a deal better already,--I am that. If I set down, I'll likely not feel like getting up again, and I've a deal to see to in t'town."

Mrs. Bond swam back, concerned and surprised, but Sarah was already well across the yard. Simon, when appealed to, said nothing but, "Nay, I reckon she'll do," and seemed equally bent upon getting himself away. They retreated hurriedly through the arch that led to the street, leaving Mrs. Bond to say, "Well, I never, now!" to the empty air. The man's face came back to the window as they went, looking after this sudden retirement with a troubled frown.

The driver was still working at his car when he found his passenger suddenly at his side. He was a queer customer, he thought to himself, looking up at the moody expression on his handsome face. He had behaved like a boy on their early morning ride, continually stopping the car, and then hustling it on again. He had sung and whistled and shouted at people on the road, laughed without any apparent reason, and dug the unfortunate driver in the back. He was clean off it, the man thought, grinning and vexed by turn, and wondering when and where the expedition would end. People as lively as that at blush of dawn were simply asking for slaps before the sun was down. He had steadied a trifle when they reached the Witham road, but the queerest thing of all that he did was that checking behind the traps. The driver was sure he was cracked by the time they got to the town, and he was surer than ever when he came out now and told him to move the car. He might have refused if his fare had not been so big and broad, and if he had not already shown himself generous on the road. As it was, he found himself, after a moment of sulky surprise, helping to push the trap into the disputed place. He still wore his injured expression when he went back to his job, but it was wasted on his employer, who never looked his way. Instead, he was standing and staring at Simon's crazy rig, and he smiled as he stared, but it was not a happy smile. Presently he, too, made his way to the arch, and disappeared into the crowded street.

The old folks had seemed in a terrible hurry to be gone, but, as a matter of fact, they halted as soon as they got outside. "I couldn't ha' gone in there whatever," Sarah said, in an apologetic tone, and Simon nodded, looking anxiously up and down.

"If I could nobbut catch a

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