Though for a time unconscious of the lowly ruffian's presence, Swithin

presently took it into his head that he was being guyed. He laid his

whip-lash across the mares flank. The two chariots, however, by some

unfortunate fatality continued abreast. Swithin's yellow, puffy face

grew red; he raised his whip to lash the costermonger, but was saved

from so far forgetting his dignity by a special intervention of

Providence. A carriage driving out through a gate forced phaeton and

donkey-cart into proximity; the wheels grated, the lighter vehicle

skidded, and was overturned.

Swithin did not look round. On no account would he have pulled up to

help the ruffian. Serve him right if he had broken his neck!

But he could not if he would. The greys had taken alarm. The phaeton

swung from side to side, and people raised frightened faces as they went

dashing past. Swithin's great arms, stretched at full length, tugged at

the reins. His cheeks were puffed, his lips compressed, his swollen face

was of a dull, angry red.

Irene had her hand on the rail, and at every lurch she gripped it

tightly. Swithin heard her ask:

"Are we going to have an accident, Uncle Swithin?"

He gasped out between his pants: "It's nothing; a--little fresh!"

"I've never been in an accident."

"Don't you move!" He took a look at her. She was smiling, perfectly

calm. "Sit still," he repeated. "Never fear, I'll get you home!"

And in the midst of all his terrible efforts, he was surprised to hear

her answer in a voice not like her own:

"I don't care if I never get home!"

The carriage giving a terrific lurch, Swithin's exclamation was jerked

back into his throat. The horses, winded by the rise of a hill, now

steadied to a trot, and finally stopped of their own accord.

"When"--Swithin described it at Timothy's--"I pulled 'em up, there she

was as cool as myself. God bless my soul! she behaved as if she didn't

care whether she broke her neck or not! What was it she said: 'I don't

care if I never get home?" Leaning over the handle of his cane, he

wheezed out, to Mrs. Small's terror: "And I'm not altogether surprised,

with a finickin' feller like young Soames for a husband!"

It did not occur to him to wonder what Bosinney had done after they had

left him there alone; whether he had gone wandering about like the dog

to which Swithin had compared him; wandering down to that copse where

the spring was still in riot, the cuckoo still calling from afar; gone

down there with her handkerchief pressed to lips, its fragrance mingling

with the scent of mint and thyme. Gone down there with such a wild,

exquisite pain in his heart that he could have cried out among the

trees. Or what, indeed, the fellow had done. In fact, till he came to

Timothy's, Swithin had forgotten all about him.




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