She would not have reared, bolted, fallen into a
ditch, upset the cart, and sent Platte flying over an aloe-hedge on to Mrs.
Larkyn's well-kept lawn; and this tale would never have been written. But the
mare did all these things, and while Platte was rolling over and over on the
turf, like a shot rabbit, the watch and guard flew from his waistcoat--as an
Infantry Major's sword hops out of the scabbard when they are firing a feu de
joie--and rolled and rolled in the moonlight, till it stopped under a window.
Platte stuffed his handkerchief under the pad, put the cart straight, and went
home.
Mark again how Kismet works! This would not happen once in a hundred years.
Towards the end of his dinner with the two Chaplains, the Colonel let out his
waistcoat and leaned over the table to look at some Mission Reports. The bar
of the watch-guard worked through the buttonhole, and the watch--Platte's
watch--slid quietly on to the carpet. Where the bearer found it next morning
and kept it.
Then the Colonel went home to the wife of his bosom; but the driver of the
carriage was drunk and lost his way. So the Colonel returned at an unseemly
hour and his excuses were not accepted. If the Colonel's Wife had been an
ordinary "vessel of wrath appointed for destruction," she would have known
that when a man stays away on purpose, his excuse is always sound and
original.
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