CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE SON OF THE MORNING.
The French Cross pony had always been regarded as an intelligent and highly cultured animal, an amusement to his mistress and the town in general, and by no means a source of melancholy.
Yet such he became after Miss Gastonguay had been laid to rest by the largest concourse of people that had ever assembled to do honour to a citizen of Rossignol.
The pony did not understand that his dear mistress lay under the green mound in the cemetery. He had seen her carried to the house, he had never seen her come out, and his mystification was complete. Where was she? How had she the heart to elude him? He was getting thin and doleful, and his tiny hoofs ached at night from his constant trottings to and fro.
She was not up among the grand houses across the river, for he daily craned his neck over their garden hedges until different members of the Potts family would come to stroke him kindly, and murmur, "Poor pony, she is not here."
Perhaps then she was among the poor people, and in joyful expectation he would hurry across the bridge to the canning factories. Sometimes the herring boats would be nearing the wharves, and the factory whistles would be sounding in a deafening chorus. She used to enjoy seeing men, women, and children running to their work. Perhaps he would discover her standing in some doorway, and he earnestly scanned the passing faces.
No, she was never there, and disappointedly he would drag himself through the town, stopping at the stores, the bank, and the office of Potts Brothers, where Mr. Jonah Potts would wink his red eyes and mutter that he wished some one would shoot that pony.
The whole town wished him dead,—the little lean animal with the pitiful eyes and weary manner,—yet there was not a man in Rossignol who would have pointed a revolver at him.