CHAPTER XXII.
"It is very curious that Rose does not come back; it is only five miles into the city. I begin to think that something has happened to the poor child," said old Mrs. Bond. "I feel quite uneasy. Mrs. Howe certainly would not keep her any longer than she could help. Something must have happened;" and she walked from one window to the other, put up her spectacles, and took them out, then took a book down from the shelf, and after reading it upside down a few minutes, returned it to its place again.
"I must certainly go into town and see what is the matter," said she. "I never shall rest easy till I know;" and going out to the barn, she called the cow-boy, and by his help, harnessed the old gray horse into the chaise, for a drive into the city.
It was slow work, that ride; for the old, stiff-jointed creature, knowing well the all-enduring patience of his mistress, crawled leisurely up and down the long hills, stopped to pay his respects to every water-trough he came across, and nosed round the sides of the road after the grass-patches, in the most zig-zag fashion; now and then stopping short, and insisting upon an entire reprieve from locomotion, to be lengthened or shortened, at his own discretion. As to the whip, old Gray stood in no fear of that, because his mistress never used it for any thing but to drive off the flies. It is not astonishing, therefore, that it was well on toward noon before he and Mrs. Bond reached the city. It was as much of an event for old Gray, as for his mistress, to see it. It was many years since either had been there. Its kaleidoscope frivolities had little charm for Mrs. Bond; her necessary wants were easily supplied from the village, and she was so fortunate as to have no artificial ones.
Old Gray stopped short, as the city's din fell upon his unsophisticated ear; and as he moved on and listened to the lashings less favored nags were receiving from merciless drivers, as he saw the enormous loads under which they staggered—stumbled—and oftentimes fell upon the plentifully watered, and slippery pavement, rising (if they rose at all) with strained and excoriated limbs, he probably thought, if horses ever think, that "God made the country, and man made the town."
"Whip up your old skeleton. Get out of the way there, can't ye?" muttered one of the progressives. "Drive to the left there, ma'am; drive to the right; halt there, ma'am," and similar other expostulations, coupled with invectives, were thundered in the ears of Mrs. Bond; who, in her benevolence of heart, jerked this way and that, backed, sidled, and went forward, and in the vain attempt to oblige all, displeased every body; still she maintained her placidity, and smiled as sweetly as if every person in the blockaded thoroughfare were not wishing her in the torrid zone.
The old lady's greatest trouble, was her fear of running over some one of the many pedestrians, of all sizes and ages, who traversed so fearlessly that Babel of horses and carriages.
"Dear heart!" she would ejaculate, as some little child made his unprotected way through the vehicles. "Dear heart! it will certainly get killed!"