[[1]] Long-dog—Greyhound.
Amelia listened and took good care not to condemn Samuel, for censure was gall to him. She left him at his tea a moment later and ran for Adam, who was milking. Thus it happened that within half an hour of his downfall, Jacob saw Winter running over the field, heard his shout and answered him.
In less than another half hour Adam had brought round a flat-bottomed pig-cart with blankets and pillows. Two men assisted him and Bullstone was lifted as gently as might be. Then Winter himself drove the injured man to Brent cottage hospital, while a labourer proceeded to Red House with the news.
CHAPTER VI
THE WITCH DOCTOR
Jacob's illness followed a straightforward and satisfactory course. It offered no marked features and awoke interest rather for its cause, than itself, or the sufferer. A week after he was known to be on the way to recovery, his wife went to see her brother. Jeremy had, after the accident, kept his mouth shut and taken no steps to advance her husband's hopes, but to-day Margery herself spoke such words as none had yet heard from her.
Bullstone's disastrous adventure did not lack for dramatic telling in Auna's version. For once she demanded to speak of her father, and she quickened her description with many tears. Nor could the event fail to deepen Margery's own emotions. She was not built to maintain an obdurate attitude to any experience, and whatever her present angle of vision, after speech with her mother, her spirit quickened and her flesh yearned. There seemed only one place for her at this time; and that was at her husband's bedside; there offered only one seemly channel of duty: to be nursing him. Life was short. She hungered terribly for an understanding and sympathetic spirit to help her at this crisis, and found that, after all, despite the tragedy of his long outrage and cruel assault, her husband was still nearest, and still quickest to reach the depths of her. Then thought, advancing upon this conviction, painted a new and another Jacob. She was aware that the whole world set sternly against him and, misreading the attempted murder, suspected that, perhaps, even Adam Winter might not have forgiven him. Surely it must have been some fiery word from Adam that prompted Samuel to his attempt. Yet there she hesitated and, on second thoughts, remembered Adam better. Doubtless he had pardoned long ago; but mad Samuel none the less echoed the people, and she knew, from what her father had told her, that the country side was more interested in Jacob's disaster than regretful of it. Their sole regret went out for the brother and the aunt of the man responsible.
Now, despondent and bewildered, Margery found some comfort in talking openly to her brother and his wife.
She took tea with them on a Sunday and was unguarded and indifferent as to what they might say, or think, of her opinion. They perceived the change in her and set it down to Jacob's situation; but though that had largely served to stimulate Margery and offer a point for argument with her parents, it did not account for the radical and growing operations of her soul. The inevitable had happened, and with all its sorrows and trials, she yet wanted back her life as it was, sanctified to her by custom. She yearned for the home that she had made and her spirit could rise to no other. She was changed, weakened a little mentally, as well as much physically, by her experiences, more frightened of life and less desirous to face it. Now she longed only for quiet—to be secluded and hidden away, forgotten and left alone. She did not dread solitude, silence, peace any more. She desired them before all things and wearied inexpressibly of the noise of the street, the bustle of business and the din of activity round about her. Among the many facts learned with increasing certainty, was the assurance that she would soon sicken and die, cooped here under the eyes of her parents—an object of pity for her father, of triumph for Judith.
These convictions she voiced to Jane, and whimsically lamented that situation which all just persons supposed she was most thankful to have escaped for ever.