GRAPES AND THORNS.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "THE HOUSE OF YORKE."
CHAPTER VI.
MARRIAGE BELLS.
That green and sequestered domain which Mr. Schöninger had looked at across the water-lilies and peopled with his fancies, which, indeed, he had visited, and was perfectly familiar with, was not so far out of the world as it appeared. It was in a great triangle made by three railroads, and there was a station-house a mile back from the pond by which the tenants of the cottage held easy communication with the two cities near. Still, the place was not very accessible from without; for this mile of country road had been made by simply driving over pasture and field, and through alder-woods, till a track was visible, and then continuing to drive in the same track. After coming through the alder-swamp, the road became two yellow-brown lines across the greensward, and ended in a grove that completely hid the barn built in it. Between these two yellow-brown lines, at regular distances, were yellow-brown spots, showing where the horse had stepped. Dobbin appeared to always step precisely in his own tracks.
It was seldom that any one drove over this road except old Mr. Grey, whose horse and wagon were, after their kind, quite as old as himself. Mrs. Macon, zealously collecting useful articles for the new convent, had driven there in her light phaeton, and spent two hours rummaging the attics with Mrs. Grey, and talking over the relics they found; that is, Mrs. Grey explained, and her visitor listened. She had gone away with bundles piled up to her chin.
One afternoon late in August, Mr. Grey harnessed Dobbin to the wagon—"tackled" Dobbin, he would have said—and started for the railroad station. He had almost reached the alders, which seemed to bar the way, when he drew the reins and listened. If it had been Mrs. Grey, instead of her husband, she would have driven straight on, for she was perfectly deaf.
These alders leaned over, and, in summer, completely hid the road, and whatever went through there had to breast a tide of leaves. It had never occurred to Mr. Grey to cut the twigs away, nor, apparently, had it occurred to Dobbin to fret against them. They jogged on uncomplainingly, never in a hurry, and lived and let live. Mr. Grey's philosophy was that every person in the world is appointed to do just so much, and that, as soon as his work is accomplished, he dies. He preferred to do his part in a leisurely manner, and live the longer.
The sound he listened to was a faint noise of wheels and hoofs, in, or beyond, the alders. For two carriages to meet in that place would be a predicament more perplexing than that of the two unwise men and the two wise goats on the narrow bridge we have all read of; because here neither could turn back, nor walk over the other, and if one should be killed, still that would not clear the track. So the driver waited, his mouth slightly open, to hear the better, and the lash of his old-fashioned whip hanging motionless over his shoulder. The old white horse dropped his nose, and went to sleep, and the creaking and rattling wagon looked as if it had made its final stand, and meant to go to pieces where it was.