The Greatest Works of Anna Katharine Green. Анна Грин

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СКАЧАТЬ child been saying? She’s so sot up at being allowed to take her brother’s place in the winder that she don’t know how to keep her tongue still. Rob’s a little languid, that’s all. You’ll see him in his old place to-morrow.” And she drew back as if in polite intimation that we might drive on.

      Mr. Simsbury responded to the suggestion, and in another moment we were trotting down the road. Had we stayed a minute longer, I think the child would have said something more or less interesting to hear.

      The horse, which had brought us thus far at a pretty sharp trot, now began to lag, which so attracted Mr. Simsbury’s attention, that he forgot to answer even by a grunt more than half of my questions. He spent most of his time looking at the nag’s hind feet, and finally, just as we came in sight of the stores, he found his tongue sufficiently to announce that the horse was casting a shoe and that he would be obliged to go to the blacksmith’s with her.

      “Humph, and how long will that take?” I asked.

      He hesitated so long, rubbing his nose with his finger, that I grew suspicious and cast a glance at the horse’s foot myself. The shoe was loose. I began to hear it clang.

      “Waal, it may be a matter of a couple of hours,” he finally drawled. “We have no blacksmith in town, and the ride up there is two miles. Sorry it happened, ma’am, but there’s all sorts of shops here, you see, and I’ve allers heard that a woman can easily spend two hours haggling away in shops.”

      I glanced at the two ill-furnished windows he pointed out, thought of Arnold & Constable’s, Tiffany’s, and the other New York establishments I had been in the habit of visiting, and suppressed my disdain. Either the man was a fool or he was acting a part in the interests of Lucetta and her family. I rather inclined to the latter supposition. If the plan was to keep me out most of the morning why could that shoe not have been loosened before the mare left the stable?

      “I made all necessary purchases while in New York,” said I, “but if you must get the horse shod, why, take her off and do it. I suppose there is a hotel parlor near here where I can sit.”

      “Oh, yes,” and he made haste to point out to me where the hotel stood. “And it’s a very nice place, ma’am. Mrs. Carter, the landlady, is the nicest sort of person. Only you won’t try to go home, ma’am, on foot? You’ll wait till I come back for you?”

      “It isn’t likely I’ll go streaking through Lost Man’s Lane alone,” I exclaimed indignantly. “I’d rather sit in Mrs. Carter’s parlor till night.”

      “And I would advise you to,” he said. “No use making gossip for the village folks. They have enough to talk about as it is.”

      Not exactly seeing the force of this reasoning, but quite willing to be left to my own devices for a little while, I pointed to a locksmith’s shop I saw near by, and bade him put me down there.

      With a sniff I declined to interpret into a token of disapproval, he drove me up to the shop and awkwardly assisted me to alight.

      “Trunk key missing?” he ventured to inquire before getting back into his seat.

      I did not think it necessary to reply, but walked immediately into the shop. He looked dissatisfied at this, but whatever his feelings were he refrained from any expression of them, and presently mounted to his place and drove off. I was left confronting the decent man who represented the lock-fitting interests in X.

      I found some difficulty in broaching my errand. Finally I said:

      “Miss Knollys, who lives up the road, wishes a key fitted to one of her doors. Will you come or send a man to her house to-day? She is too occupied to see about it herself.”

      The man must have been struck by my appearance, for he stared at me quite curiously for a minute. Then he gave a hem and a haw and said:

      “Certainly. What kind of a door is it?” When I had answered, he gave me another curious glance and seemed uneasy to step back to where his assistant was working with a file.

      “You will be sure to come in time to have the lock fitted before night?” I said in that peremptory manner of mine which means simply, “I keep my promises and expect you to keep yours.”

      His “Certainly” struck me as a little weaker this time, possibly because his curiosity was excited. “Are you the lady from New York who is staying with them?” he asked, stepping back, seemingly quite unawed by my positive demeanor.

      “Yes,” said I, thawing a trifle; “I am Miss Butterworth.”

      He looked at me almost as if I were a curiosity.

      “And did you sleep there last night?” he urged.

      I thought it best to thaw still more.

      “Of course,” I said. “Where do you think I would sleep? The young ladies are friends of mine.”

      He rapped abstractedly on the counter with a small key he was holding.

      “Excuse me,” said he, with some remembrance of my position toward him as a stranger, “but weren’t you afraid?”

      “Afraid?” I echoed. “Afraid in Miss Knollys’ house?”

      “Why, then, do you want a key to your door?” he asked, with a slight appearance of excitement. “We don’t lock doors here in the village; at least we didn’t.”

      “I did not say it was my door,” I began, but, feeling that this was a prevarication not only unworthy of me, but one that he was entirely too sharp to accept, I added stiffly: “It is for my door. I am not accustomed even at home to sleep with my room unlocked.”

      “Oh,” he murmured, totally unconvinced, “I thought you might have got a scare. Folks somehow are afraid of that old place, it’s so big and ghost-like. I don’t think you would find any one in this village who would sleep there all night.”

      “A pleasing preparation for my rest to-night,” I grimly laughed. “Dangers on the road and ghosts in the house. Happily I don’t believe in the latter.”

      The gesture he made showed incredulity. He had ceased rapping with the key or even to show any wish to join his assistant. All his thoughts for the moment seemed to be concentrated on me.

      “You don’t know little Rob,” he inquired, “the crippled lad who lives at the head of the lane?”

      “No,” I said; “I haven’t been in town a day yet, but I mean to know Rob and his sister too. Two cripples in one family rouse my interest.”

      He did not say why he had spoken of the child, but began tapping with his key again.

      “And you are sure you saw nothing?” he whispered. “Lots of things can happen in a lonely road like that.”

      “Not if everybody is as afraid to enter it as you say your villagers are,” I retorted.

      But he didn’t yield a jot.

      “Some folks don’t mind present dangers,” said he. “Spirits——”

      But he received no encouragement СКАЧАТЬ