'Doc.' Gordon by Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
page 68 of 239 (28%)
page 68 of 239 (28%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
her obstinacy. However, he tried the usual methods, touching with the
whip, getting out and attempting to lead, but they were all, as he had supposed from the first, in vain. A terrible sense of being up against fate itself seized him: an animal's will unreasoning, unrelenting, bears, in fact, the aspect of fate itself. It is at once sensate and insensate. James thought of Clemency, and decided to waste no more time. The gray mare was near enough to a tree to tie her, and he tied her and set out on foot. It was a very dark night, cloudy and chilly and threatening snow. He walked on, as it were, through softly enveloping shadows, which seemed to his excited fancy to be coming forward to meet him. He began to be very much alarmed. He had wasted most of his young sentiment upon Clemency's mother, but, after all, he suddenly discovered that he had a feeling for the girl herself. He thought that it was only the natural anxiety of any man of honor for the safety of a helpless young girl out alone at night, and beset by possible dangers, but he realized himself in a panic. His plan was of course to go directly to Annie Lipton's home, some two miles farther on, then it occurred to him that Clemency must inevitably have left there. If she were lying dead or injured on the road, how in the world was he to see? He felt in his pocket for matches, and found just one. He lit that and peered around. While it burned he saw nothing except the frozen road with its desolate borders of woods and brush, a fit scene for countless tragedies. When the match burned out he thought of something else. Supposing that Clemency were lying half-dead anywhere near the road, how was she to know that a friend was near? Immediately he began to whistle. Whistling was a trick of his, and he had a remarkably sweet, clear pipe. He knew that Clemency, if she were to hear his whistle, would know who was near. He whistled "Way down upon the Suwanee River" through, then he began on the "Flower Song" from Faust, walking all the time quite |
|