The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1908-01-10
DIVORCED.
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II
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Among the dust of the road still
glittering in the rays of the setting
sun, the evening mail coach passed,
the old vehicle jolting about and the
bills jingling on the little white
horses. Then Claudine appeared at
the door of the little white house.
With her hand over her eyes and
her elbow high in the air, she stood
motionless in sharp relief against the
dark background of the interior. The
young woman's robust chest was in
flated with impatient, joyous, expec-
tation; and the blood rising under her
brown skin frightened her black eyes
and impaired a still deeper redness
to her laughing lips that contrasted
with the shining whiteness of her
teeth.
In the distance the sun, sinking
ever lower, fastened its dying rays
upon the f1eecy tops of the wooded
hillsides, imprinting upon the dark
green of the old oaks points of light
that quivered against the blue hori-
zon; but nearer, large ray, piercing
the verdure, enveloped, as with
last and tardy caress, the rounded
summit of naked hillock. whose
slopes, dying at the turn in the road,
presented in the shadow long, dull
gray stretch of plowed land.
Claudine knew that beneath these
slopes, over which resounded in the
stiffness of the evening the sonorous
voices of the laborers urging on their
oxen, lay immense quarries corroding
the earth and extending on and on
infinitely, seeming, with their but
tressed galleries, like the suddenly
cIeared-up ruins of some buried city;
and thither her thoughts went, in
search of her husband.
She saw him, young like herself
and very handsome, perched on some
high scaffolding, toiling at the top
of the quarry, in the trembling light
of lamps, that looked like stars, amid
the continual and monotonous drip
ping of The waters; but now his labor
ended, he descended and arranged his
tools; then very quickly, thinking Of
her and impatient for her kisses, he
came through the dark passages
where the trucks had dug ruts in the
mud.
Quarrymen wearing gaudy sashes,
with jackets thrown over their should
ers, were beginning to appear in a
series of groups along the white
road. Their voices rose, sometimes
in song-voice vibrating like waves Of
sunlight and as rough as the sur.
rounding country.
necessarily the procession length
ened
One by one Claudine recognized
the sunburnt faces as they grew
more and more distinct. But her man
did not yet appear and suddenly, as
she was examining with her sharpest
look the farthest groups on the hill
side, whose contour seemed to sink,
cloud of dust shot up. high and en-
ormous, casting vast shadow.
The quarrymen stopped short in
the road; then they ran back and at
the same time, with a settling of
all the neighboring territory, a ire
mendous explosion burst out like a
peal Of thunder and rolled through the
valley. The quarry had fallen in.
Claudine uttered a cry and fell upon
the road with arms outstretched.
Under the ground, full of crevices
and covered with fallen houses that
spread their broken red-tiIed roofs
over the ruins like mantle, quarry
men were buried, at inaccessible and
hopeless depths; and near the foot
of the hill, at point where the en-.
gineers were trying to pierce a gal
lery. Claudine in crouching posture,
with wild look on her face and re-
fusing to bulge, awaited her man.
For days she rnmained there. un.
able to believe in disasler and un-
willing to be consoled, her eyes fixed
ok5tinately upon the gallery which
thsy were opening.
But the work caused fresh settings
of the soil. and then water flowed
into the gallery. and they were obliged
to stop their labors.
Then gloomily she climbed the hill.
At the top the workmen were now
boring shaft. She crouched down
near them, watching the piston go up
and down with continuous, meehan-
jcal movement. the dull shocks OF
which, occurring at regular intervals,
quieted her and filled her with sooth-
ing hopes. But the steel screws be.
gan to break or in the finty strata.