CHAPTER I
THE NEW COACHMAN
“Now you polish up those buckles real good, won't you, 'Zekiel? I will say for Fanshaw, you could most see your face in the harness always.”
The young fellow addressed rubbed away at the nickel plating good humoredly, although he had heard enough exhortations in the last twenty-four hours to chafe somewhat the spirit of youth. His mother, a large, heavy woman, stood over him, her face full of care.
“It's a big change from driving a grocery wagon to driving a gentleman's carriage, 'Zekiel. I do hope you sense it.”
“You'd make a bronze image sense it, mother,” answered the young man, smiling broadly. “You might sit and sermonize just as well, mightn't you? Sitting's as cheap as standing,”—he cast a glance around the clean spaces of the barn in search of a chair—“or if you'd rather go and attend to your knitting, I've seen harness before, you know.”
“I'm not sure as you've ever handled a gentleman's harness in your life, 'Zekiel Forbes.”
“It's a fact they don't wear 'em much down Boston way.”
His mother regarded his shock of light hair with repressed fondness.
“It was a big responsibility I took when I asked Mr. Evringham to let you try the place,” she said solemnly, “and I'm going to do my best to help you fill it. It does seem almost a providence the way Fanshaw's livery fits you; and if you'll hold yourself up, I may be partial, but it seems to me you look better in it than he ever did; and I'm sure if handsome is as handsome does, you'll fill it better every way, even if he was a fashionable English coachman. Mrs. Evringham was so pleased with his style she tried to have him kept even after he'd taken too much for the second time; but Mr. Evringham valued his horses too highly for that, I can tell you.”
“Thought the governor was a widower still,” remarked Ezekiel as his mother drew forward a battered chair and dusted it with the huge apron that covered her neat dress. She seated herself close to her boy.
“Of course he is,” she returned with some asperity. “Why should he get married with such a home as he's got? Fifteen years I've kept house for Mr. Evringham. I don't believe but what he'd say that in all that time he's never found his beef overdone or a button off his shirts.”
“Humph!” grunted Ezekiel. “He looks as if he wouldn't mind hanging you to the nearest tree if he did. I heard tell once that there was a cold hell as well as a hot one. Think says I, when the governor was looking me over the other day, 'You've set sail for the cold place, old boy.'”
“Zeke Forbes, don't you ever let me hear you say such a thing again!” exclaimed Mrs. Forbes. “Mr. Evringham is the finest gentleman within one hundred miles of New York city. When a man has spent his life in Wall Street it's bound to show some in his face, of course; but what comfort has that man ever known?”
“Pretty scrumptious place he's got here in this park, I notice,” returned the new coachman.
“Yes, he has a breath of fresh air before he goes to the city and after he gets back every day. Isn't that Essex Maid of his a beauty?” Mrs. Forbes cast her eyes towards the stalls where the shining flanks of two horses were visible from her seat by the wide-open doors of the barn. “His rides back there among the hills,”—Mrs. Forbes waved her hand vaguely toward the tall trees waving in the spring sunshine—“are his one pleasure; and he never tires of them. You will find the horses here something different to groom from those common grocery horses in Boston.”
“Oh, I don't know,” drawled 'Zekiel, teasingly.
“Then you'd better know, young man,” emphatically. “And, Zeke, what's the names of those carriages?” pointing with sudden energy at two half shrouded vehicles.
“How many guesses do I get?”
“Guessing ain't going to do. Do you know, or don't you?”
“Know? Why,” leniently, “bless your heart, mother, don't you s'pose I know a buggy and a carryall when I see 'em?”
“Oh, you poor benighted grocery boy!” Mrs. Forbes raised her hands. “What a mercy I mentioned it! Imagine Mrs. Evringham hearing you ask if she'd have the buggy or the carryall! 'Zekiel,” solemnly, “listen to me. That tall one's a spider, and the other's a broom. There! Do you hear me? A spider and a broom!”
Ezekiel's merry eyes met the anxious ones with a twinkle.
“Who'd have thought it!” he responded.
“Now then, Zeke,” anxiously, “it's my responsibility. I recommended you. I want you should say 'em off as glib as Fanshaw did. Now then, which is which?”
“Mother, didn't you tell me that the late lamented was not a prohibitionist?”
“Fanshaw drank like a fish, if that's what you mean.”
“Well, just because he saw things in this barn you needn't expect me to! Poor chap! Spiders and brooms! He must have been glad to go.”
Mrs. Forbes' earnest expression did not change. “'Zekiel, don't you tease, now! We haven't got time. I want you to make such a success of this that you'll stay with me. You can't think how I felt when I woke up this morning and thought the first thing, 'Zeke's here.' Why, I've scarcely kept acquainted with you for fifteen years. Scarcely saw you except for a few weeks in the summer time. Now I've got you again!”
“I ain't the only thing you've got again,” grinned 'Zekiel, “if you're going to see things, same as Fanshaw did.”
Thus reminded, the housekeeper looked back at the phaeton and the brougham. “Be a good boy, Zeke,” coaxingly, “and don't forget now, because Mrs. Evringham is a great stickler—and a great sticker, too,” added Mrs. Forbes in a different tone.
“Who is the old woman, if the governor isn't married?” asked Ezekiel with not very lively interest. “She don't seem popular with you.”
“I'll tell you who she is,” returned his mother in a low, emphatic tone. “she's just what I say—a sticker and an interloper.”
“H'm! Shouldn't wonder if the green-eyed monster had got after mamma,” soliloquized the youth aloud. “Somebody else sews on the buttons now, perhaps.”
“'Zekiel Forbes, we must have an understanding right off. You've got to joke and tease, I s'pose, but it can't be about Mr. Evringham. This is like a law of the Medes and Persians, and I want you should understand it. The more you see of him the less you'll dare to joke about him.”
“I told you he scared me stiff,” acknowledged Zeke, running the harness through his hands to discover another dingy spot.
“Well, he'd better. Now I wouldn't gossip to you of my employer's affairs—I hope we're better than two common servants—but I want you to be as loyal to him as I am, and to understand a few of the reasons why he can't go giggling around like some folks.”
“Great Scott!” interpolated the young coachman. “Mr. Evringham go giggling around! So would Bunker Hill monument!”
“Listen to me, Zeke. Mr. Evringham has had two sons. His wife died when the oldest, Lawrence, was fifteen. Well, both those boys disappointed him. Lawrence when