“Yes, Eddard, I know dat. Das why I’s packin’.”
“You’re a good fellow, Peter, a true friend, but let me do it; I’m in terrible haste!”
“No, sar, you’s not in haste. Dere’s lots ob time.” (He pulled out a watch of the warming-pan type and consulted it.) “De coach don’t start till one o’clock; it’s now eleben; so dere’s no hurry. You jest lie down on de bed an’ I’ll pack de bag.”
Instead of lying down the poor Frenchman fell on his knees beside the bed and laid his face in his hands.
“Yes—das better. Dere’s some sense in dat,” muttered the negro as he quietly continued to pack the valise.
Two hours later and Laronde was dashing across country as fast as four good horses could take him, with George Foster on one side, Peter the Great on the other, and Brown on the box-seat—the fo’c’sl, he called it—beside the red-coated driver.
Whatever may be true of your modern forty-mile-an-hour iron horse, there can be no question that the ten-mile-an-hour of those days, behind a spanking team with clattering wheels, and swaying springs, and cracking whip, and sounding horn, felt uncommonly swift and satisfactory. Laronde shut his eyes and enjoyed it at first. But the strength engendered by excitement soon began to fail. The long weary journey helped to make things worse, and when at last they arrived at the journey’s end, and went with Miss Love and Minnie to the lodging, poor Laronde had scarcely strength left to totter to his wife’s bedside. This was fortunate, however, for he was the better able to restrain his feelings.
“She has had a long satisfactory sleep—is still sleeping—and is much better,” was the nurse’s report as they entered. The daughter looked with surprise at the weak worn man who was led forward. Laronde did not observe her. His eyes were fixed on the bed where the pale thin figure lay. One of Marie’s hands lay outside the blanket. The husband knelt, took it gently and laid his cheek on it. Then he began to stroke it softly. The action awoke the sleeper, but she did not open her eyes.
“Go on,” she murmured gently; “you always used to do that when I was ill or tired—don’t stop it yet, as you always do now, and go away.”
The sound of her own voice seemed to awake her. She turned her head and her eyes opened wide while she gazed in his face with a steady stare. Uttering a sharp cry she seized him round the neck, exclaiming, “Praise the Lord!”