Wastralls: A NovelDawson Scott, C. A. (Catharine Amy)
General
Wastralls: A Novel
Dawson Scott, C. A. (Catharine Amy)
Cornwall (England : County) -- Fiction; Farm life -- Fiction; Husband and wife -- Fiction
Mrs. Byron had a bright day for her journey, a day with but one cloud.
The staff of the hospital had gathered to see her start and when, on her
trolly, and followed by her luggage and a certain long wooden box, oddly
suggestive of a shortened coffin, she rolled herself down the hall and
into the roadway, they broke into a cheer. The gallant bearing of this
mutilated creature had drawn from them an emotional response. The
beauty of it, the poignancy, touched them. Men pressed forward to offer
their help and tears stood in the eyes of the women. That was the
spirit, this elemental courage, this defiance of unhappy fate. Yes,
Sabina was indeed true descendant of Old Squire—he to whom men for so
long had given their respect.
In the road, drawn up and waiting, stood the farm wagon. Jim Rosevear,
with a proper sense of the ceremonial nature of the occasion, had
plaited the horses’ manes and tails with coloured worsteds. The brass
harness twinkled in the sun and the cart-horses had been groomed until
their coats were nearly as bright. Sabina, occupied with her trolly,
which was showing a tendency to turn a little to the left, was not
immediately aware that the driver was not her husband. Not indeed until
the trolly had been lifted to its place on the floor of the wagon and
secured by ropes, was she at liberty to look about.
When she saw who was come for her she leaned forward in the cone.
"Where’s the maister to?" she asked.
Jim, who was getting ready to start, looked over his shoulder. "He’s
gone fishin’."
"Fishin’?" She had thought he might have gone on business down one of
the many crooked streets of the little town, business from which he
would return in time to drive her home.
"Fishin’ for bass on the Head."
"Whatever took’n in the ’ead to do that to-day?" she said and dwelt for
a moment on the incomprehensible nature of man. Strange that Leadville
should not want to share her triumph, the triumph of the woman who
belonged to him, who was flesh of his flesh; to share this triumph which
was, in part, his. She had been in excellent spirits, but his absence
dashed them. It required the manifested goodwill of the people in the
streets to restore her equanimity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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