A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 / A Novel

by Mrs. Harry Coghill

"He does not yet even know all," Mrs. Costello answered. "He is so excessively weak that they dared not tell him till to-morrow."

"To-morrow, then, he will be here?"

"No, that is impossible. There is much to be done first; but very soon I hope."

Yet both doubted in their hearts whether the shadow—ever deepening—of approaching death could yet be so checked as to suffer the prisoner to breathe the free air for which he pined.

Meanwhile, the story was being told by every fireside in Cacouna with more of wonder and of comment than by that one where it had the deepest interest. And it was a tale that would be remembered and repeated for years, though no living man could tell it all.

That morning Clarkson had been for some hours at Cacouna. He had various places to go to, and both sales and purchases to make, but he found time, as usual, to visit more than one place where whisky was sold; and when at last he drove out of the town, he had but just enough power of self-control to keep himself from swaying about visibly as he sat in his sleigh. He was in boisterous spirits, and greeted every acquaintance he met with some rough jest—pointless but noisy—singing snatches of songs, and flourishing his whip with an air of tipsy bravado. At a small tavern near the sawmill he dismounted for the last time.

It was a little after noon, and several of the men employed about the mill were lounging round the stove in the tavern when Clarkson went in. He found some of his own particular associates among the group, and, being in a generous humour, he pulled out a dirty dollar-note and ordered glasses round. These were followed by others; and when, after another half-hour, he got into his sleigh again, he was quite beyond the power of guiding his horse, or even of seeing where he was going. He was more noisy than ever; and as he started off, some of his more sober companions shouted warnings after him, and stood watching him as he went, with a pretty strong feeling that he was not likely to reach home safely.

In fact, he had proceeded but a little way across the open plain where Dr. Morton's body had been found when he took a wrong direction, and, instead of keeping a tolerably straight line towards his own home, he turned to the left, following a track which led to the water's edge, and ran beside it, over broken and boggy ground, until after making a semicircle it rejoined the principal road on the further side of the plain. No sober man would have chosen this track, for it was heavy for the horse, and was carried over several rough bridges across the large drains which had lately been cut to carry off the water from the swamp. The deep snow which had fallen, with little previous frost, lay soft and thick over the whole ground; it covered the holes in the bridges, and so choked up the drains that in many places they were completely concealed, and what appeared to be a smooth level surface of ground might really be a dangerous pitfall. Here, however, Clarkson chose to go. He flogged his horse unmercifully, and the sleigh flew over the ground, scattering the snow and striking every moment against some roughness of the road which it concealed. They passed one of the drains safely, though the round logs of which the bridge was formed shook and rattled under them; but between that and the next, the tipsy driver turned quite out of the track, and drove on at the same headlong pace towards the open trench. At the very brink the horse stopped; he tried to turn aside, but a tremendous lash of the whip urged him on; he leaped forward and just cleared the drain, but the weight of the sleigh dragged him backwards, and the whole mass crashed through the snow and the thin ice under it into the bottom of the cutting.

Some of the men who had watched Clarkson drive off from the tavern had not yet returned to their work, and the place where the accident happened was not so far off but that something of it could be seen. Two or three started off, and soon arrived at the spot where the sleigh had disappeared.

The drain, though deep, was not very wide, and if, even at the very moment of the fall, Clarkson had been capable of exerting himself, he might have escaped; as it was, he lay among the broken fragments of his sleigh and shouted out imprecations upon his horse, which had been dragged down on the top of him. But when the poor animal was freed from the harness, and with as much care as possible removed from the body of its master, a much harder task remained. Clarkson was frightfully hurt—how, they could hardly tell, but it seemed as if his head and arms were all that had escaped. The rest of his body appeared to be dead; he had not the smallest power to move, and yet there was no outward wound, and his voice was as strong as ever. They raised him with the greatest gentleness and care, and bringing up the bottom of the broken sleigh, laid his helpless limbs on it compassionately, and carried him back to the tavern, paying no heed to the flood of curses which he constantly poured out.