Madelon Part 12

"Can you let me take a horse?" said she, abruptly.

Dexter Beers looked slowly around at her with a quick roll of a black eye in a ma.s.sive face. He had an enormous bulk, which he moved about with painful sidewise motions. His voice was husky.

"What d'ye want a horse for?" said he.

"I want it to put in Parson Fair's sleigh."

"What for?"

"To take Dorothy to ride."

"Parson's horse lame yet?"

Madelon nodded.

"Where's yours?"

"I can't have him."

Dexter Beers still moved on with curious lateral twirls of his shoulders and heaves of his great chest, with its row of shining waistcoat b.u.t.tons.

"Pooty cold day for a sleigh-ride," he observed, with a great steam of breath.

"I'll pay you well for the horse," said Madelon, in a hard voice. She followed him into the stable. He heaved the meal-sack from his shoulder to the floor with a grunt. Another man came forward with a peck measure in his hand. He was young, with a frosty yellow mustache. He had gone to school with Madelon and knew her well, but he looked at her with uncouth shyness without speaking. Then he began unfastening the mouth of the sack.

Madelon stepped forward impatiently towards the horse-stalls. There were the relay of coach-horses, great grays and bays, champing their feed, getting ready for their sure-footed rushes over the mountain roads when the coaches came in. She pa.s.sed them by with sharp glances.

A man whose face was purplish red with cold was out in the rear of the stable, rubbing down a restive bay with loud "whoas," and now and then a stronger word and a hard twitch at the halter. He looked curiously at Madelon as she walked up to one of the stalls.

"Better look out for them heels!" he called out, as she drew nearer.

She paid no heed, but went straight into the stall, untied the horse, and began to back him out. "Hi, there!" the man shouted, and Dexter Beers and the young man came hurrying up. "Better look out for that gal--I believe she's gone crazy!" he called out. "I can't leave this darned beast--she'll get kicked to death if she don't look out. That old white won't stan' a woman in the stall. Whoa, there! whoa, darn ye! Stan' still!"

"Hullo, what ye doin' of?" demanded Dexter Beers, coming up.

Madelon calmly backed the horse out of his stall. "I want to hire this horse," said she, holding his halter with a firm hand.

"That horse?"

"Yes. I'll pay you whatever you ask."

Dexter Beers stared at her and the horse dubiously. "Jest as soon set a woman to drivin' the devil as that old white," volunteered the man who was cleaning the bay. The young man stood gaping with wonder.

"Can I have this horse or not?" demanded Madelon. Her black eyes flashed imperiously at Dexter Beers. Her small brown hand held the halter of the old white with a grasp like steel.

"Dunno 'bout your drivin' that horse," said Dexter Beers. "'Fraid you'll get run away with. Better take another."

"Isn't this horse the fastest you've got on a short stretch?"

"S'pose he is, but I dunno 'bout a woman's drivin' of him."

Madelon looked as if she were half minded to spring upon the back of the old white and settle the matter summarily. She fairly quivered with impatience.

"A woman who can drive David Hautville's roan can drive this horse, and you know it," said she. She moved forward as she spoke, leading the high-stepping old white, and Dexter Beers stood aside.

"Well, David Hautville's roan is nigh a match for this one," he grunted, hesitatingly, "but then ye know your own better. Hadn't ye better--"

But the old white was out of the stable at a trot, with Madelon running alongside.

"Don't ye want a man to hitch him up?" Dexter Beers called after her; but she was out of hearing.

"If the gal's ekal to drivin' that horse, she's ekal to hitchin' of him up," said the man who was cleaning the bay. "If a gal wants to drive, let her hitch. Ye'd better let a woman go the whole figger when she gits started, just as ye'd better give an ugly cuss of a horse his head up hill an' down. It takes the mischief out of 'em quicker'n anything. Let her go it, Dexter--don't ye fret."

"I don't want her breakin' any of the parson's daughter's bones with none of my horses," said Dexter Beers, uneasily. "Wonder where the parson is?"

"Let 'em go it! They won't git smashed up, I guess," said the other.

"I've seen that gal of Hautville's with that mare of his'n. She kin drive most anythin' short of the devil, an' old white's got sense enough to know when he's well driv, ugly's he is. He wa'n't on the track for nothin'. He ain't no wuss, if he's as bad, as that roan mare. Let 'em _go_ it!"

"Wonder what's to pay?" said the young man, who had not spoken before.

"Dunno," said Dexter Beers. "Somethin's to pay--that girl acted queer."

"S'pose she takes it hard 'bout Burr Gordon. He used to fool 'round her, I've heerd, afore he went courtin' the parson's gal."

"Dunno--queer she's so thick with the parson's gal all of a sudden."

"Lord, I wouldn't tech a gal that could git the upperhand of a horse like that roan mare with a ten-foot pole," half soliloquized the man at work over the bay. "Wouldn't have her if she owned half the township, an' went down on her knees to me--darned if I would. Don't want no woman that kin make horse-flesh like that knuckle under.

Guess a man wouldn't have much show; hev to take his porridge 'bout the way she wanted to make it. Whoa, there! stan' still, can't ye?

Darned if I want nothin' to do with sech woman folks or sech horses as ye be."

Dexter Beers moved laboriously out to the stable door and peered after Madelon, but she had disappeared in Parson Fair's yard. The white horse had gone up the road at a brisk trot, but she had easily kept pace with him. She also harnessed him into the sleigh with no difficulty. The animal seemed docile, and as if he were to belie his hard reputation. There was, however, a proud and nervous cant to his old white head, and he set his jaw stiffly against his bit.

Dorothy came out in her quilted silk pelisse and her blue hood edged with swan's-down, and got into the sleigh. The black woman was keeping watch at the parson's study door the while, but he never swerved from his hard application of the doctrines. The sleigh slipped noiselessly out of the yard and up the road, for Madelon had not put on the bells. The old white went rather stiffly and steadily for the first quarter-mile; then he made a leap forward with a great lift of his lean white flanks, and they flew.

Dorothy gave a terrified gasp. "Don't be frightened," Madelon said.

"It's the horse that used to beat everything in the county. He's old now, but when he gets warmed up he's the fastest horse around for a short stretch. He can't hold out long, but while he does he goes; and I want to get a good start. I want to strike the New Salem road as soon as I can."

Madelon had a growing fear lest Eugene might have freed himself, and might ride the roan across by a shorter cut, and so intercept her at the turn into the New Salem road. He might easily suspect her of attempting to see Burr again. If she pa.s.sed the turn first she could probably escape him if her horse held out; and, indeed, he might not think she had gone that way if he did not see her.

Dorothy held fast to the side of the sleigh, which seemed to rise from the track as they sped on. "Don't be frightened," Madelon said again. "This is the only horse in town that can beat my father's on a short stretch, and I don't know that he can always, but I don't think he has been used, and father's was ridden hard yesterday. I can manage this one in harness better than I can father's. Don't be frightened." But Dorothy's face grew pale as the swan's-down around it, and her great blue eyes were fixed fearfully upon the bounding heels and flanks of the old white race-horse.

Madelon strained her eyes ahead as they neared the turn of the New Salem road. There was n.o.body in sight. Then she glanced across the fields at the right. Suddenly she swung out the reins over the back of the old white, and hallooed, and stood up in the sleigh.

Dorothy screamed faintly. "Sit still and hold on!" Madelon shouted.

Dorothy shut her eyes. It seemed to her she was being hurled through s.p.a.ce. Her slender body swung to and fro against the sleigh as she clung frantically to it.

Eugene Hautville, on the roan, was coming at a mad run across the open field on the right towards the turn of the road. It seemed for a second as if Madelon would reach it before he did; but they met there, and the roan reared to a stop in the narrow road directly in front of the old white, who plunged furiously.

"Look out there!" shouted Eugene, as the sleigh tilted on the snow-crust. The old white's temper was up at this sudden check, but the woman behind him had a stronger will than he. She brought him to a straining halt, and then she spoke to her brother.