As it was, this
magnate of St. Saviour's, who yesterday posed so sympathetically and
effectively in the Court at Vilray as a figure of note, did the quite
obvious thing: he determined to kill the master-carpenter from Laplatte.
There was no genius in that. When, from under the spreading beech-tree,
Jean Jacques saw his wife footing it back to her house with a light,
wayward step; when he watched the master-carpenter vault over a stone
fence five feet high with a smile of triumph mingled with doubt on his
face, he was too stunned at first to move or speak. If a sledge-hammer
strikes you on the skull, though your skull is of such a hardness that it
does not break, still the shock numbs activity for awhile, at any rate.
The sledge-hammer had descended on Jean Jacques' head, and also had
struck him between the eyes; and it is in the credit balance of his
ledger of life, that he refrained from useless outcry at the moment. Such
a stroke kills some men, either at once, or by lengthened torture; others
it sends mad, so that they make a clamour which draws the attention of
the astonished and not sympathetic world; but it only paralysed Jean
Jacques. For a time he sat fascinated by the ferocity of the event, his
eyes following the hurrying wife and the jaunty, swaggering
master-carpenter with a strange, animal-like dismay and apprehension.
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