"There, sir! Is that easier? Push the rags in there behind his back. It'll save the jolts. Lord love you, I wouldn't split on the pair of you, not me. I know the old, old story. There, that's it! Now, then, your ladyship. No more weight in the hand than a mushroom! All serene, Mary. Home sweet home; that's the tune, sir, ain't it? Drive easy now: and off we go."
Chapter Fifty-Three
Noiselessly turned the wheels in the grass. We were descending the hill. A jolt, and we were in the road. A hedgerow shut us out from the two shrouded watchers by the tent. The braying music fainted away; and apart from the trotting hoofs and the grinding of the wheels in the dust, the only sound I heard was an occasional lofty crackle in space, as a rocket—our last greeting from the circus—stooping on its fiery course, strewed its coloured stars into the moonlight. Then the rearing hill-side shut us out.
Speechlessly, from the floor of the cart, I watched the stooping figure above me. Ever and again, at any sudden lurch against a stone, he shrank down, then slowly lifted himself, turned his head and smiled.
"That's the tune, sir; that's the tune, sir." The words aimlessly repeated themselves in my brain, as if bringing me a message I could not grasp or understand. "What was I thinking about?" a voice kept asking me. A strange, sluggish look dwelt in the dilated pupils under the drooping lids when the moonbeams struck in on us from between the branches. His right hand hung loosely down. I clasped it—stone-cold.
"Listen, tell me," I entreated, "you fell? I heard them calling, and—and the clapping, what then?" I could speak no louder, but he seemed scarcely able to hear me.
"My shoulder," he answered thickly, as if the words came sluggishly and were half-strange to him. "I fell.... Nothing: nothing. Only that I love you."
The breath sighed itself away. I leaned my cheek against the unanswering hand, and chafed it with mine. Where now? Where now?