“I guess that court was composed of old bachelors,” exclaimed my wife in indignant accents.
“Well, my dear, even married judges, and those who have been blessed with quivers full of those sharp things, children, have declared the rule to be that, if the plaintiff’s negligence in any way concurred in causing the damage, he cannot recover unless he could not, by the exercise of ordinary care, have avoided the injury, or the defendant has been guilty of gross negligence, or intentionally did the wrong.”[84]
A little feminine chit-chat now occupied our attention; criticism concerning the friends we had been visiting, their foibles and weaknesses; speculations as to the incomes of the husbands, the age of the wives, and such like remarks which absorb such a large proportion of the atmospheric air that is converted into language.
In passing a man, he would not turn out, and I grazed his horses’ legs, causing the animals to plunge and kick so as to knock the cutter about considerably; but seeing that the fellow was drunk and not able to drive properly, I was not at all alarmed about any damage I might have done, for I knew that I could not be held responsible.[85]
The sun had gone to rest; the stars were coming out one by one, dotting the vault of heaven as with sparkling gems. We heard in the distance the ringing laughter and the tinkling bells of a merry driving party. My wife exclaimed:—
“Hear the sledges with the bells,
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight:
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells—
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.”
We were at this time driving down in a ditch for the sake of the snow (the road itself being well-nigh bare), and just as my wife concluded her poetic quotation over we turned. Luckily fortune again favored us, for my deviating from the right path without sufficient cause would have prevented my recovering for any damage we might have suffered.[86] One voluntarily encountering perils in the dark does so at his own risk.[87]
My wife impatiently suggested that she had better take the reins. I told her that she could reign at home, but that if she was driving and we really met with an accident, twelve jurymen would have to inquire into her capacity and the horses’ character,[88] in considering whether ordinary care had been exercised, and the less said on the first subject the better.
“For goodness’ sake, then, tell me what I can get if I am hurt on these abominable roads,” she pettishly asked.
“Well,” I said, clearing my throat for a speech, “if the town is to blame for the state of the road, it is liable for the direct and immediate losses occasioned by the accident.[89] In some cases I could recover for the loss of your services and the expenses of your sickness;[90] although in Maine and Connecticut it has been decided otherwise.[91] If I myself were injured, I could get recouped for my loss of time and medical expenses.[92] Where the exertions of the plaintiff in endeavoring to rescue his horses, which had broken through a bridge, his exposure to the elements and his agitation—all the direct result of the defect in the bridge—produced epilepsy and made the man a wreck in body and mind (the doctors said the disease usually terminated in paralysis and mental imbecility), the jury gave the man $500 in compensation, and the judges thought it was none too much.”[93]