The Village Gossip CHAPTER 4.
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Scarcely had the excited blacksmith replaced his flask of liquor, from which he had taken a deep draught, in its secret repository, before another visitor entered his shop. It wasMary Green. She had come, instigated by the Wimbles, to demand some kind of remuneration for the injury she had sustained.
"Good day, Mr. Striker," said she. There was an expression on her face, that the blacksmith did not at all like.
"Good day, Mary," he simply responded; and then awaited the further will of his visitor. Of this he was not long in doubt.
"I've come to have some talk with you about Fanny," said she.
"Well — what about her?" returned Striker. "How is she getting along?"
"She'll lose her hoof, of course, and be of no use to me or anybody else, for the next six months or more."
"I'm sorry. But what can I do?" replied the blacksmith. "The foot is wounded, and there is now no help for it. I've already told you that my old brown horse is at your service, whenever you want him; be it on week-day or Sunday. What more can you ask?"
"Old brown horse!" Mary Green spoke with a strong expression of contempt.
"Why do you speak and look so, Mary Green?" said the blacksmith, contracting his heavy brows, and exhibiting many signs of the impatience he felt.
She did not utter the disparaging words about "old sorrel" that were rising to her tongue, but merely said —
"All very well — and I'm obliged for the offer. But that doesn't mend Fanny's foot. Besides, I'm used to Fanny, and don't like to ride any other animal."
"Do you think I can mend the beast's foot? ha?" The blacksmith was becoming more and more fretted every moment. "Do you want an iron hoof? If so, bring her along, and I'll put one on."
The last sentence was uttered in a sneering tone, and chafed Mary Green a good deal.
"There's one thing you can do," said she, "and one thing you ought to do — I'm a poor widow, and you have injured my property."
"What ought I to do, ha?"
"I wonder that you can ask," said Mary Green. "Everybody says you should do it."
"Do what?" asked the blacksmith.
"Why, pay damages."
"Damages?" echoed the blacksmith.
"Certainly. Everybody in Cedardale says you ought to pay me at least twenty dollars for crippling Fanny."
"Twenty dollars!" Striker was made angry at this, beyond all control. "Twenty dollars!" he repeated, and then added passionately, "Just take yourself away from here in double-quick time! Twenty dollars for the hoof of a miserable, old, bleary-eyed, shambling beast that never was worth half the money! Do you think I'm a fool?"
"I think you were drunk when you lamed Fanny," retorted Mrs. Green, now quite as angry as the blacksmith. "And if I don't make you pay well for it, there's no law in the land."
"Drunk! Law! Mary Green! This from you?"
The fire grew suddenly dim in the blacksmith's eyes, and his voice, which before was harsh and resentful, became lower in tone and shorn of its steadiness. But Mary Green, now blind from passion, perceiving not this change, sharply answered —
"Yes, drunk! You shall have law to your heart's content. Call my Fanny a miserable, old, bleary-eyed, shambling beast, ha! as if it wasn't enough in you to lame her for life. Oh! but you shall pay for this. I'll have remuneration, if there is law or justice in the land — I will!"
Irritated — yet deeply hurt by the words of Mary Green — words so unexpected, as coming from her lips — Striker felt himself again losing his self-control. He did not wish at that time to use any more harsh or cutting words, and so, taking her by the arm, he led her, with some force, to the door of his shop, and pushing her out, said, with more sadness than anger in his voice —
"Go now, Mary Green — go! I didn't expect this from you."
"And what did you expect, ha?" answered fiercely the now terribly-excited woman, almost screaming as she wheeled herself around, and took a defiant attitude right in front of the smithy door. "What did you expect? To cripple my poor Fanny for life; and then insult me when I called to ask for remuneration. A nice neighbor you are, indeed! A nice neighbor! But I'll bring you to your feelings — I will. I'll make it cost you a pretty penny before I'm done with you. A miserable, old, bleary-eyed beast, ha! Oh! you shall smart for it!"
And shaking her fist at the half-stupefied blacksmith, Mary Green turned away, and strode off with the firm, rapid steps of a man.
It was astonishing how passion and antagonism had metamorphosed this woman, ordinarily the mildest and least resentful of any of the ill-assorted denizens of Cedardale. Poor Striker, who felt as if suddenly beset by all the malignant influences around him, was absolutely confounded by an assault from a quarter so unexpected. For a little while after her disappearance, he stood leaning on the handle of his hammer, in a kind of musing stupor. Then he went again to his liquor-flask, and this time drained its contents to the bottom. Alas! How were all the good resolutions that, a little while before, commenced forming themselves in his mind, scattered to the winds. The grief of his wife had touched him deeply; and, abjuring in his heart the fiery poison which had worked such ruin to them all, he had resolved to become a sober man. And there is no telling how quickly this good resolution, like a seed in the earth, would have struck down its first slender shoots and gathered nutriment and strength — had not the miller and Mary Green, like evil birds, picked out the good seed before it had time to germinate.
The entire contents of the blacksmith's flask of liquor, taken within so short a time, proved to be more than he could bear, unaffected as he was, from long habit, by ordinary intoxicating influences. After drinking this second time, he sat down on the edge of his forge, and tried to think over, with some degree of coherence, the exciting events of the last half-hour. But the more he tried to think, the more confused became his mind. At length, wearied with thinking and stupefied by liquor, he leaned over, and reclined upon his arm. Thus he remained for a short time. Then bending his arm backward, and behind his head, so as to make of it a sort of pillow, he sank down among the coals and cinders, with his head but a few inches from the smouldering blast on the forge.
Half an hour after nightfall, when his unhappy wife, wearied out with waiting for his return, and anxious on account of his unusual absence, sought for him in his shop, she found him, as he had thus laid himself down, asleep and insensible.
Poor drunkard's wife! We will not attempt to picture the anguish of your breaking heart. A little while ago, there was a star of hope in your sky, shining out from amid the rifted cloud — now, alas! all is again darkness and despair!
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