Chapter 21 The Wagon on the Ice

It was the wagon that came up the road, and it came up the road at four in the afternoon on the sixty-fourth day, and it came up badly, because the lane had frozen in the night and the frost had not gone off the grass and the wagon had no brakes that worked and the man who was driving it had no grip on the reins. Kessin saw it first from the window. She had been sitting at the table with the ledger and the pen, and she had been counting the debt, and she counted to eleven pounds and nine shillings and nine pence, and then she stopped counting because the sound came from outside, a sound like a man trying to stop a thing that would not stop. She went out to the yard. The wagon was on the lane, three hundred yards from the hall gate, and it was sliding, and it was sliding slowly, and it was sliding toward the second corner where the lane turned and the hedge stood close and the frost was white on the grass. The man at the reins had gotten out of his seat and was standing beside the wagon with his hands in the wheels, and he was pushing, and pushing did nothing, because the wagon was heavier than he was and the lane was steeper than it looked and the frost was slicker than it looked. "Stand off!" he shouted down the lane, and he did not know where he was shouting. Peth was at the wheel when Kessin came out. He heard it too, and he was already moving, and he had the case in one hand and the wood from the fence pile in the other, and he ran down the lane faster than Kessin had seen him run. Brin came out through the gate a moment later. He had been in the yard with two sacks of lime and he did not put them down, and he walked down the lane at a steady step that covered the ground evenly, and he did not run, because a man who has walked a lane for twenty years knows that running is the wrong thing to do on frost. The man at the reins had a red face and a grey beard and hands that had gone white in the cold, and he said, "If it goes over the corner I have nothing." "It has nothing either," said Kessin, when she got to the wagon, because the wagon had two sacks of salt on it, and the salt had come from the market at Gillanwick, and the salt was wet at the bottom, and the wet salt was heavy. "Brin," she said. "Brin, the corner." Brin was already at the corner. He put one sack of lime down and he put the other against the hedge, and then he took the rope from the wagon and he tied it round the stone at the second corner, and the stone was the stone he had walked past twenty thousand times, and he knew it held. "Pull," he said. Peth pulled the other end. The man in the wagon pulled the reins. The wagon did not move. The wagon was heavy and the frost was slick and the lane was steep and the three of them pulled and the rope creaked and the stone held and the wheels groaned, and then Peth stepped down into the ruts where the gravel was hard and the wheels found the gravel, and the wagon slid to a stop four inches from the hedge, and the hedge took nothing, and the salt took nothing, and the rope held. The man sat down on the axle and took off his hat and held it under his arm. "Name," said Kessin. "Dorl Kesson," he said. "You are going to Gillanwick," said Brin. "I am going to the salt," said Dorl Kesson. "And the salt is on the wagon, and the wagon is on the lane, and the lane is the lane." "It is the lane," said Kessin. The donkey had come out through the gate by then, and Clack stood at the end of the lane with his head low and his ears forward and he looked at the wagon and the wagon looked at him, and Dorl Kesson laughed once, a short dry laugh that had no joy in it, and he said, "He will not move it." "No," said Kessin. "He will not." "I have walked this lane for nineteen years," said Dorl Kesson. "My father walked it and he walked it in the frost and he pushed this wagon in the frost and he pushed it because the salt was the salt, and he pushed it every autumn until his hands were bad, and then he died with bad hands and he never said a word about it." "He walked the lane for twenty years," said Kessin. "I know Brin," said Dorl Kesson. "Brin is the only man on this road who will not ask me for coin, because Brin does not ask anyone for coin." "I will ask you for nothing," said Brin. "The lane asks for nothing." Dorl Kesson looked at the two of them and then at the rope round the stone, and he stood up and took the rope off the stone and put it back on the wagon, and he said, "I will pay the hall." "The hall will not take coin from you," said Kessin. "Then the hall will take the salt." "The hall will not take the salt," said Kessin. "The hall will take a card." "A card," said Dorl Kesson. "A card," said Kessin. "You will carry the salt to Gillanwick and back, and the hall will pay you one crown, and the hall will give you bread, and the hall will give you the wheel to sit on when the night is long, and the hall will have the lane walked in the frost while you carry the salt." "That is a fare," said Dorl Kesson. "That is a fare," said Kessin. He looked at the board through the yard gate, and the board had ten cards on it, and the tenth card was white, and he did not see the tenth card, and he did not know about the seventh name, and he said, "I will take the card." He took the card that Kessin had written that evening, and he read it, and it said: Band. Two sacks of salt, to Gillanwick and back, in the frost. Fare: one crown and supper. Name: Dorl Kesson. "It says band," he said. "It says band," said Kessin. "Am I band?" "You are band," said Kessin. "And the hall has the salt, and the hall has the lane, and the hall has the frost." Dorl Kesson put the card in his pocket and he put the sacks on the wagon and he took the reins and he drove the wagon out through the gate, and the frost was under the wheels and the hedge was green under the frost, and Brin stood at the gate with his hat off and his hands on his knees, and Peth stood at the wheel with the wood he had carried down the lane for nothing, and Kessin stood at the yard wall with the white card still on the board. "I have paid him," said Kessin, to no one. "No," said Turrel, from the kitchen door, with the coffee in her hand. "You have sent him." "I have paid him," said Kessin. "One crown at the end of the road." "One crown at the end of the road," said Turrel. "And the hall will have a card, and the hall will have the lane walked in the frost, and the hall will have a man who has walked the lane for nineteen years and has never once asked for coin." "Then the hall will have him," said Kessin. "Then the hall will have him," said Turrel. "And the hall will have the debt, and the debt will not be paid this week, because the hall has one crown, and the hall has not paid the debt since it was written in ink." She put the coffee on the table and took the cloth from her apron and wiped the wood, and Kessin sat down at the table, and the boy sat across from her with the wood still in his arms, and he set the wood on the floor and said, "The stone held." "The stone held," said Kessin. "The stone held because the rope was round it," said Peth. "The rope was round the stone," said Kessin. "Brin knew the stone," said Peth. "Brin knew the stone," said Kessin. "Then Brin knew the lane," said Peth. "Brin knew the lane," said Kessin. "And the lane knew him," said Peth. "The lane knew him," said Kessin. Outside the wagon was sliding away down the lane in the frost, and the wheels were turning on the iron, and the salt was heavy, and the hedge stood close, and the river was under the mist, and the board had ten cards on it, and the tenth card was white, and the frost was on the grass. ---