XXII
Buckley Simmons was late in arriving from the hospital, and it was past seven before the stage departed for Greenstream. Buckley sat immediately back of Gordon Makimmon; the former’s head, muffled in a long woolen scarf, showed only his dull, unwitting gaze.
They rapidly left the dank stone streets and houses. The smoke ascending from the waterworks was no greyer than the day. The rain fell in small, chill, gusty sweeps.
Gordon Makimmon settled resolutely to the long drive; he was oblivious of the miles of sodden road stretching out behind, he was not aware of the pale, dripping, wintry landscape—he was lost in a continuous train of memories wheeling bright and distant through his mind. He was looking back upon the features of the past as he might have looked at a series of dissolving pictures, his interest in which was solely that of spectator.
They were without unity, unintelligible in the light of any concerted purpose or result. They were, however, highly pleasant, or amazingly inexplicable. For example:
His wife, Lettice, how young she was smiling at him from the sunny grass! She walked happily toward him, with her shawl about her shoulders, but she didn’t reach him; she was sitting in the rocking chair on the porch ... the day faded, she was singing a little throaty song, sewing upon a little square of white—she was gone as swiftly, as utterly, as a shadow. The shape of Meta Beggs, animated with incomprehensible gestures, took its place in the procession of his memories. She, grimacing, came alike to naught, vanished. All stopped for a moment and then disappeared, leaving no trace behind.
He mechanically arrested the horses before the isolated buildings that formed the midday halt.
Buckley Simmons, crouching low over the table, consumed his dinner with formless, guttural approbation. The place above his forehead, where he had been struck by the stone, was puckered and dark. He raised his eyes—the unquenchable hatred of Gordon Makimmon flared momentarily on his vacuous countenance like the flame of a match lit in the wind.
Once more on the road the rain stopped, the cold increased; high above the earth the masses of cloud gathered wind-herded in the south. The dripping from the trees ceased, the black branches took on a faint glitter; the distant crash of a falling limb sounded from the woods.
Gordon, doubting whether the horses’ shoes had been lately roughed, descended, but, to his surprise, found that the scoring had been properly maintained, in spite of the fact that it had not had his attention. He had little cause to swing the heavy whip—the off horse, a raw-boned animal colored yellowish-white, never ceased pulling valiantly on the traces; he assumed not only his own share of the labor but was willing to accept that of his companion, and Gordon had continually to restrain him.