They had left the village now, and were out upon the smooth river road, where they came upon a young M. D. of Rothsay, who was jogging leisurely along in his high sulky, behind his old sorrel mare. Beatrice knew the doctor well, and more than once they had driven side by side amid a shower of dust, along that fine, broad road, and now, when she saw him and his sorry-looking nag, the spirit of mischief and frolic awoke within her, and she could no more refrain from some saucy remark concerning his beast and challenging him to a trial of speed than she could keep from breathing. Another moment and they were off like the wind, and to Bee’s great surprise old Jenny, the sorrel mare, who, in her long-past youth had been a racer and swept the stakes at Cincinnati, and who now at the sound of battle felt her old blood rise, kept neck to neck with the fleet horses, Spitfire and Starlight. At last old Jenny shot past them, and in her excitement Beatrice rose, and standing upright, urged her ponies on until Jenny’s wind gave out, and Starlight and Spitfire were far ahead and rushing down the turnpike at a break-neck speed, which rocked the light phaeton from side to side and seemed almost to lift it from the ground. It was a decided runaway now, and people stopped to look after the mad horses and the excited but not in the least frightened girl, who, still standing upright, with her hat hanging down her back and her wig a little awry, kept them with a firm hand straight in the road, and said to the white-faced man beside her, when he, too, sprang up to take the reins: “Sit down and keep quiet. I’ll see you safely through. We can surely ride as fast as they can run. I rather enjoy it.”
And so she did until they came to a point where the road turned with the river, and where in the bend a little school-house stood. It was just recess, and a troop of boys came crowding out, whooping and yelling as only boys can whoop and yell, when they saw the ponies, who, really frightened now, shied suddenly, and reared high in the air. After that came chaos and darkness to Everard, and the next he knew he was lying on the grass, with his head in Bee’s lap, and the blood flowing from a deep gash in his forehead, just above the left eye. This she was stanching with her handkerchief, and bathing his face with the water the boys brought her in a tin dipper from the school-house. Far off in the distance the ponies were still running, and scattered at intervals along the road were fragments of the broken phaeton, together with Bee’s bonnet, and, worse than all, her wig. But Bee did not know that she had lost it, or care for her ruined phaeton. She did not know or care for anything, except that Everard Forrest was lying upon the grass as white and still as if he were really dead. But Everard was not dead, and the doctor, who soon came up with the panting, mortified Jennie, said it was only a flesh wound, from which nothing serious would result. Then Bee thought of her hair, which a boy had rescued from a playful puppy who was doing his best to tear it in pieces. The sight of her wig made Bee herself again, and with many a merry joke at her own expense, she mounted into a farmer’s wagon with Everard, and bade the driver take them back to the Forrest House.
It was Rossie who met them first, her black eyes growing troubled and anxious when she saw the bandage on Everard’s head. But he assured her it was nothing, while Bee laughed over the adventure, and when the judge would have censured his son, took all the blame upon herself, and then, promising to call again in the evening, went in search of her truant horses.
CHAPTER VI.
MOTHER AND SON.
That afternoon Mrs. Forrest seemed so much better that even her husband began to hope, when he saw the color on her cheek, and the increased brightness of her eyes. But she was not deceived. She knew the nature of her disease, and that she had not long to live. So what she would say to her son must be said without delay. Accordingly, after lunch, she bade Rossie send him to her, and then leave them alone together. Everard obeyed the summons at once, though there was a shrinking fear in his heart as he thought, “Now I must tell her of Josey,” and wondered what she would say. Since his drive with Beatrice it did not seem half so easy to talk of Josephine, and that marriage ceremony was very far away, and very unreal, too. His mother was propped up on her pillows, and smiled pleasantly upon him as he took his seat beside her.
“Everard,” she began, “there are so many things I must say to you about the past and the future, and I must say them now while I have the strength. Another day may be too late.”
He knew to what she referred, and with a protest against it, told her she was not going to die; she must not; she must live for him, who would be nothing without her.
Very gently she soothed him into quiet, and he listened while she talked of all he had been, and all she wished him to be in the future. Faithfully, but gently, she went over with his faults, one by one, beseeching him to forsake them, and with a bursting heart he promised everything which she required, and told her again of the reform already commenced.
“God bless you, my boy, and prosper you as you keep this pledge to your dying mother, and whether you are great or not, may you be good and Christlike, and come one day to meet me where sorrow is unknown,” she said to him finally; then, after a pause, she continued: “There is one subject more of which, as a woman and your mother, I must speak to you. Some day you will marry, of course——”