Chapter 12

Late one evening Trescott, returning from a professional call, paused his buggy at the Hagenthorpe gate. He tied the mare to the old tin-covered post, and entered the house. Ultimately he appeared with a companion—a man who walked slowly and carefully, as if he were learning. He was wrapped to the heels in an old-fashioned ulster. They entered the buggy and drove away.

After a silence only broken by the swift and musical humming of the wheels on the smooth road, Trescott spoke. “Henry,” he said, “I’ve got you a home here with old Alek Williams. You will have everything you want to eat and a good place to sleep, and I hope you will get along there all right. I will pay all your expenses, and come to see you as often as I can. If you don’t get along, I want you to let me know as soon as possible, and then we will do what we can to make it better.”

The dark figure at the doctor’s side answered with a cheerful laugh. “These buggy wheels don’ look like I washed ‘em yesterday, docteh,” he said.

Trescott hesitated for a moment, and then went on insistently, “I am taking you to Alek Williams, Henry, and I—”

The figure chuckled again. “No, ‘deed! No, seh! Alek Williams don’ know a hoss! ‘Deed he don’t. He don’ know a hoss from a pig.” The laugh that followed was like the rattle of pebbles.

Trescott turned and looked sternly and coldly at the dim form in the gloom from the buggy-top. “Henry,” he said, “I didn’t say anything about horses. I was saying—”