The Garden of Eden Part 45

"Is she so wise a colt?" he said.

"Wise?" cried Elijah, his eye s.h.i.+ning with joy at the opening which he had made. "I talk to her as I talk to a man. She is as full of tricks as a dog. Look, now!"

He leaned over and pretended to pick at the gra.s.s, whereat Timeh stole up behind him and drew out a handkerchief from his hip pocket. Off she raced and came back in a flas.h.i.+ng circle to face Elijah with the cloth fluttering in her teeth.

"So!" cried Elijah, taking the handkerchief again and looking eagerly at the master of the Garden. "Was there ever a colt like my Timeh?"

"The back legs," said David slowly.

Elijah had been preparing himself to speak again, with a smile. He was arrested in the midst of a gesture and his face altered like a man at the banquet at the news of a death.

"The hind legs, David," he echoed hollowly. "But what of them? They are a small part of the whole! And they are not wrong. They are not very wrong, oh my master!"

"The hocks are sprung in and turned a little."

"A very little. Only the eye of David could see it and know that it is wrong!"

"A small flaw makes the stone break. At a rotten knot-hole the great tree snaps in the storm. And a small sin may undermine a good man. The hind legs are wrong, Elijah."

"To be sure. In a colt. Many things seem wrong in a colt, but in the grown horse they disappear!"

"This fault will not disappear. It is the set of the joint and that can never be changed. It can only grow worse."

Elijah, staring straight ahead, was searching his brain, but that brain was numbed by the calamity which had befallen him. He could only stroke the lovely head of the little colt and pray for help.

"Yesterday," he said at length in a trembling voice, "Elijah, as a fool, spoke words which angered his master. Back on my head I call them now.

David, do not judge Timeh with a wrathful heart.

"Let the sins of Elijah fall on the head of Elijah, but let Timeh go unpunished for my faults."

"You grow old, Elijah, and you forget. The judgment of David is never colored by his own likes and dislikes, his own wishes and prejudice. He sees the right, and therefore his judgments are true."

"Aye, David, but truth is not merciful, and blessed above all things is mercy. When you see Timeh, think of Elijah. How he has watched over the colt, and loved it, and played with it, and taught it, by the hours, the proper manners for a colt and a mare of the Garden of Eden."

"That is true. It is a well-mannered colt."

Elijah caught at a new straw of hope.

"Also, in the field, if two colts race home for water and Timeh is one, she reaches the water first--always. She comes to me like a child. In the morning she slips out of the paddock, and coming to my window, she puts in her head and calls me with a whinny as soft as the voice of a man. Then I arise and go out to her and to Juri."

Ruth was weeping openly, her hand closed hard on the arm of Connor; and she felt the muscles along that arm contract. She almost loved the gambler for his rage at the inexorable David.

"Consider Juri, also," said Elijah. "Seven times--I numbered them on my fingers and remembered--seven times when the horses were brought before you in the morning, you have called to Juri and mounted her for the morning ride--that was before Glani was raised to his full strength. And always the master has said:

"'Stout-hearted Juri! She pours out her strength for her rider as a generous host pours out his wine!'"

David frowned, but plainly he was touched.

"Juri!" he called, and when the n.o.ble mare came to him, he laid his hand on her mane.

"Who has spoken of Juri? Surely I am not judging her this day. It was Matthew who judged her when she was a foal of six months."

"And it was Matthew," added Elijah hastily, "who loved her above all horses!"

"Ah!" muttered David, deeply moved.

"Consider the heart of Juri," went on Elijah, timidly following this new thread of argument. "When the mares neigh and the colts come running, there will be none to gallop to her side. When she goes out in the morning there will be no daughter to gallop around and around her, tossing her head and her heels. And when she comes home at night there will be no tired foal leaning against her side for weariness."

"Peace, Elijah! You speak against the law."

In spite of himself, the glance of Elijah turned slowly and sullenly until it rested upon Ruth Manning. David followed the direction of that look and he understood. There stood the living evidence that he had broken the law of the Garden at least once. He flushed darkly.

"The colt's gone," said Connor in a savagely-controlled murmur to the girl. "That devil has made up his mind. His pride is up now!"

Elijah, too, seemed to realize that he had thrown away his last chance.

He could only stretch out his hands with the tears streaming down his wrinkled face and repeat in his broken voice: "Mercy, David, mercy for Timeh and Juri and Elijah!"

But the face of David was iron.

"Look at Juri," he commanded. "She is flawless, strong, sound of hoof and heart and limb. And that is because her sire and her mother before her were well seen to. No narrow forehead has ever been allowed to come into the breed of the Eden Grays. I have heard Paul condemn a colt because the very ears were too long and flabby and the carriage of the horse dull. The weak and the faulty have been gelded and sent from the Garden or else killed. And therefore Juri to-day is stout and n.o.ble, and Glani has a spirit of fire. It is not easy to do. But if I find a sin in my own nature, do I not tear it out at a price of pain? And shall I spare a colt when I do not spare myself? A law is a law and a fault is a fault. Timeh must die!"

The extended arms of Elijah fell. Connor felt Ruth surge forward from beside him, but he checked her strongly.

"No use!" he said. "You could change a very devil more easily than you can change David now! He's too proud to change his mind."

"Oh," sobbed the girl softly, "I hate him! I hate him!"

"Let Timeh live until the morning," said David in the same calm voice.

"Let Juri be spared this night of grief and uneasiness. If it is done in the morning she will be less anxious until the dark comes, and by that time the edge of her sorrow shall be dulled."

"Whose hand," asked Elijah faintly--"whose hand must strike the blow?"

"Yesterday," said David, "you spoke to me a great deal of the laws of the Garden and their breaking. Do you not know that law which says that he from whose household the faulty mare foal has come must destroy it?

You know that law. Then let it not be said that Elijah, who so loves the law, has s.h.i.+rked his lawful burden!"

At this final blow poor Elijah lifted his face.

"Lord G.o.d!" he said, "give me strength. It is more than I can bear!"

"Go!" commanded the master of the Garden.

Elijah turned slowly away. As if to show the way, Timeh galloped before him.

_CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE_