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The Master of Warlock. George Cary Eggleston
Читать онлайн.Название The Master of Warlock
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isbn 4064066128470
Автор произведения George Cary Eggleston
Жанр Языкознание
Издательство Bookwire
"' At Christ-church-in-the-wood '"
By GEORGE CARY EGGLESTON, Author of "Dorothy South," "A Carolina Cavalier." Six Illustrations by C. D. Williams.
A STORY OF VIRGINIA JUST BEFORE THE WAR
A STIRRING TALE OF WAR AND ADVENTURE
By CHURCHILL WILLIAMS, author of "J. Devlin—Boss." Illustrated by A. I. Keller.
A ROMANCE OF AMERICAN POLITICS.
I
A break in the bridge
The road was a winding, twisting track as it threaded its way through a stretch of old field pines. The land was nearly level at that point, and quite unobstructed, so that there was not the slightest reason that ordinary intelligence could discover for the roadway's devious wanderings. It might just as well have run straight through the pine lands.
But in Virginia people were never in a hurry. They had all of leisure that well-settled and perfectly self-satisfied ways of life could bring to a people whose chief concern it was to live uprightly and happily in that state of existence into which it had pleased God to call them. What difference could it make to a people so minded, whether the journey to the Court-house—the centre and seat of county activities of all kinds—were a mile or two longer or shorter by reason of meaningless curves in the road, or by reason of a lack of them? Why should they bother to straighten out road windings that had the authority of long use for their being? And why should the well-fed negro drivers of family carriages shake themselves out of their customary and comfortable naps in order to drive more directly across the pine land, when the horses, if left to themselves, would placidly follow the traditional track?
The crookedness of the road was a fact, and Virginians of that time always accepted and respected facts to which they had been long accustomed. For that sufficient reason Baillie Pegram, the young master of Warlock, was not thinking of the road at all, but accepting it as he did the greenery of the trees and the bursting of the buds, as he jogged along at a dog-trot on that fine April morning in the year of our Lord 1861.
He was well mounted upon a mettlesome sorrel mare,—a mare with pronounced ideas of her own. The young man had taught her to bend these somewhat to his will, but her individuality was not yet so far subdued or suppressed as to lose itself in that of her master. So she suddenly halted and vigorously snorted as she came within sight of the little bridge over Dogwood Branch, where a horse and a young gentlewoman were obviously in trouble.
I name the horse and the girl in that ungallant reverse order, because that was the order in which they revealed themselves to the mare and her master. For the girl was on the farther side of the horse, and stooping, so that she could not be seen at a first glance. As she heard approaching hoof-beats she straightened herself into that dignity of demeanour which every young Virginia gentlewoman felt it to be her supreme duty in life to maintain under any and all circumstances.
She was gowned in the riding-habit of that time, with glove-fitting body and a skirt so long that, even when its wearer sat upon a high horse, it extended to within eighteen inches of the ground. When Baillie Pegram reached the little bridge and hastily dismounted, she was standing as erect as a young hickory-tree, making the most of her five feet four of height, and holding the skirt up sufficiently to free her feet. She wore a look half of welcome, half of defiance on her face. The defiance was prompted by a high-bred maidenly sense of propriety and by something else. The welcome was due to an instinctive rejoicing in the coming of masculine help. For the girl was indeed in sore need of assistance. Her horse had slipped his foot through a break in the bridge flooring, and after a painful struggle, had given up the attempt to extricate it. He was panting with pain, and his young mistress was sympathetically sharing every pain that he suffered.
Baillie Pegram gave the girl a rather formal greeting as he dismounted. Stooping he examined the imprisoned leg of the animal. Then seizing a stone from the margin of the stream, he quickly beat the planking loose from its fastenings, releasing the poor brute from its pillory. But the freed foot did not plant itself upon the ground again. The horse held it up, limp and dangling. Seeing what had happened, the young man promptly ungirthed the saddles, and transferred that of the young woman to the back of his own animal.
"You must take my mare, Miss Ronald," he said. "Your horse is in no condition to carry you, and, poor fellow, he never will be again."
"Just what has happened, Mr. Pegram?" the girl asked, with a good deal of hauteur in her tone.
"Your horse's leg is broken beyond all possibility of repair," he answered. "I will take care of him for you, and you must ride my mare. She is a trifle unruly at times, and not very bridle-wise, so that she is scarcely fit for a lady's use. But I take it you know how to ride."
The girl did not answer at once. After a space she said:
"You forget that I am Agatha Ronald."
"No, I do not forget," he answered. "I remember