"Now, that's better," he said, rising, and looking round in some perplexity. "Ah, yonder is a cart coming up the big road. I can get the driver of it to take you home."
He spoke to the negro who was driving the swaying oxen, and gave him some money, and stood waiting until he saw the Frenchman lifted carefully and safely into the cart, and well started on the way toward his home. Then the judge went on his own lonely, homeless road to the tavern. The lengthening shadows of the hills were already darkening the valley, although a wonderful golden light still lingered above the summits, making the new moon look wan. There was only daylight enough for the judge to see old lady Gordon sitting alone at her window, and seeing her, he was reminded that it was his duty to tell her of the accident which had befallen the manager of her farm.
She looked up suddenly, almost eagerly, at the sound of his approach, and peered into the gloaming with the sad intentness of weary eyes which are no longer sure of what they see. When she recognized the judge, she suddenly settled heavily back in her chair with an abrupt movement of angry disappointment. She did not thank him for coming to tell her, and she did not ask him to come in. She merely nodded with the rude taciturnity which, with her, always marked some disturbance of mind.
XXIV
OLD LADY GORDON'S ANGER
For this breaker from a sea of troubles, gradually overspreading all Oldfield, had now gone so far that it had stirred, at last, even the long unstirred level of old lady Gordon's vast indifference.
It had been many a long year since she had been moved to such anger as she was feeling on that day; few things seemed to her worth real anger; she accepted almost everything with careless, almost amiable, tolerance. Selfishness as absolute as hers often wears a manner very like good nature, because it is far too great to be moved by trifles.
Poor old lady Gordon! She had managed to sink her disappointment in self-indulgence, as wretchedness too often sinks itself in opium. She had eaten rich food because the eating of it helped to pass the dull days of her distasteful life; she had read all the novels within her reach—good, bad, and indifferent—because reading was not so tiresome as thinking, when there was nothing pleasant to think about; she had laughed at many follies and mistakes which she saw clearly enough, because it seemed to her useless to try to prevent folly or the making of mistakes.
And yet none knew the true from the false better than this honest, scornful old pagan, who had buried more than one talent, more than ordinary intelligence, under habitual sloth of mind and body; and none had a more genuine respect for all that was finest and highest. But her own early striving toward it had met too complete a defeat for her—being what she was—to go on striving or to think it worth while for others to strive. A nature like hers can never submit, unembittered and unhardened, to wrong and unhappiness; nor is it ever winged by the spiritual so that it may rise above its false place in the world. It can only beat itself against the stone wall of environment, or recoil in fatalistic indifference. And in this last poor old lady Gordon had found refuge so long ago that she had quite forgotten the pain—and the pleasure—which comes with suffering through loving.