The Truth About Tristrem Varick: A NovelSaltus, Edgar
General
The Truth About Tristrem Varick: A Novel
Saltus, Edgar
Fiction
"I saw the horse as good as an hour ago," he said, "I was going to
Caswell's." And with this information he crooked his arm and made a
backward gesture. "It's down yonder on the way to the Point," he
explained. "As I passed Hazard's I looked in the cross-road--I call it a
road, but after you get on a bit it's nothing more than a cow-path, all
bushes and suchlike. But just up the road I see'd the horse. He was
nibbling grass as quiet as you please. I didn't pay no attention, I
thought he was tied. Well, when I was coming back I looked again; he
wasn't there, but just as I got to the turn I heard somebody holloaing,
and I stopped. A man ran up and says to me, 'There's a lady hurt
herself, can't you give her a lift?' 'Where?' says I. 'Down there,' he
says, 'back of Hazard's; she's been thrown.' So I turned round, and sure
enough there she was, by the fence, sort of dazed like. I says, 'Are you
hurt, miss?' and she says, 'No,' but could I bring her here, and then I
see'd that her dress was torn. She got in, and I asked her where her hat
was, and she said it was back there, but it didn't make no difference,
she wanted to get home. And when we were driving on here I told her as
how I see'd the horse, and I asked if it wasn't one of White's, and she
said, 'Yes, it was,' and I was a-going to ask where she was thrown, but
she seemed sort of faint, and, sure enough, just as we got here away she
went. I always says women-folk ought not to be let on horse-back, she
might have broke her neck; like as not----"
"You have been very kind," Tristrem answered, "very kind, indeed."
During the entire scene he had not said a word. The spectacle of Viola
fainting on the roadside, the fear that she might be maimed, the trouble
at her pallor--these things had tied his tongue; and even now, as he
spoke, his voice was not assured, and a hand with which he fumbled in
his waistcoat trembled so that the roll of bills which he drew out fell
on the porch at his feet. He stooped and picked it up.
"If Mrs. Raritan were here, she would thank you as I do," he continued.
"I wish--" and he was about to make some present, but the man drew back.
"That's all right, I don't want no pay for that."
"I beg your pardon," Tristrem answered, "I know you do not. Tell me, are
you married?"
The man laughed.
"Yes, I am, and I got the biggest boy you ever see. He's going on four
years and he weighs a ton."
"I wish you would do me a favor. Let me make him a little present."
But even to this the man would not listen. He was reluctant to accept so
much as thanks. Having done what good he could, he was anxious to go his
way--the sort of man that one has to visit the seashore to find, and
who, when found, is as refreshing as the breeze.
As he left the porch, he looked back. "Here's the doctor," he said, and
passed on into the night.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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