Late one evening Trescott, returning from a professional call, paused
his buggy at the Hagenthorpe gate. He tied the mare to the old
tin-covered post, and entered the house. Ultimately he appeared with a
companion--a man who walked slowly and carefully, as if he were
learning. He was wrapped to the heels in an old-fashioned ulster. They
entered the buggy and drove away.
After a silence only broken by the swift and musical humming of the
wheels on the smooth road, Trescott spoke. "Henry," he said, "I've got
you a home here with old Alek Williams. You will have everything you
want to eat and a good place to sleep, and I hope you will get along
there all right. I will pay all your expenses, and come to see you as
often as I can. If you don't get along, I want you to let me know as
soon as possible, and then we will do what we can to make it better."
The dark figure at the doctor's side answered with a cheerful laugh.
"These buggy wheels don' look like I washed 'em yesterday, docteh," he
said.
Trescott hesitated for a moment, and then went on insistently, "I am
taking you to Alek Williams, Henry, and I--"
The figure chuckled again. "No, 'deed! No, seh! Alek Williams don'
know a hoss! 'Deed he don't. He don' know a hoss from a pig." The
laugh that followed was like the rattle of pebbles.
Trescott turned and looked sternly and coldly at the dim form in the
gloom from the buggy-top. "Henry," he said, "I didn't say anything
about horses. I was saying--"
"Hoss? Hoss?" said the quavering voice from these near shadows. "Hoss?
'Deed I don' know all erbout a boss! 'Deed I don't." There was a
satirical chuckle.
At the end of three miles the mare slackened and the doctor leaned
forward, peering, while holding tight reins. The wheels of the buggy
bumped often over out-cropping bowlders. A window shone forth, a
simple square of topaz on a great black hill-side. Four dogs charged
the buggy with ferocity, and when it did not promptly retreat, they
circled courageously around the flanks, baying. A door opened near the
window in the hill-side, and a man came and stood on a beach of yellow
light.
"Yah! yah! You Roveh! You Susie! Come yah! Come yah this minit!"