|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 59
"That is, your father may die. I suppose you and your wife have talked
over that probability. Beatrice will be able to endure the climate
then."
"If I did not see that you were under very strong excitement, Charlotte,
I should be much offended by what you say. But you don't mean to hurt
me. Do you imagine that I feel no sorrow in leaving father and my mother
and you and the old home? My heart is very sad to-night, Charley. I feel
that I shall come here no more."
"Then why go away? Why, why?"
"Because a man leaves father and mother and every thing for the woman he
loves. Charley, help me."
She shook her head sadly.
"Help me to break the trouble to father."
"There is no 'breaking' it. It will break him. It will kill him. Alas,
it is the ungrateful child that has the power to inflict a slow and
torturing death! Poor father! Poor mother! And it is I that must witness
it. I, that would die to save them from such undeserved sorrow."
Then Harry rose up angrily, pushed his chair impatiently away, and
without a word went to his own room.
In the morning the squire came down to breakfast in exceedingly high
spirits. A Scotchman would have called him "_fey_," and been certain
that misfortune was at his heels. And Charlotte looked at him in
wondering pity, for Harry's face was the face of a man determined to
carry out his own will regardless of consequences.
"Come, come, Harry," said the squire in a loud, cheerful voice, "you are
moping, and eating no breakfast. Charlotte will have to fill three times
before it is 'cup down' with me. I think we will take Dobbin, and go
over to Windermere in the tax-cart. The roads will be a bit sloppery,
but Dobbin isn't too old to splash through them at a rattling pace. He
is a famous good old-has-been is Dobbin. Give me a Suffolk Punch for a
roadster. I set much by them. Eh? What?"
"I must leave Sandal this morning, sir."
"Sir me no sir, Harry. 'Father' will stand between you and me, I think.
You must make a put-off for one day. I was at Bowness last week, and
they say such a winter for char-fishing was never seen. While I was on
the lakeside, Kit Noble's boat came in. He had all of twenty dozen in
the bottom of it. Mr. Wordsworth was there too, and he made a piece of
poetry about 'The silvery lights playing over them;' and he took me to
see a picture that a London gentleman painted of Kit and his boat. You
never saw fish out of the water look so fresh; their olive-green backs
and vermillion bellies and dark-red fins were as natural as life. Come
Harry, we will go and fetch over a few dozen. If you carry your colonel
some, he will take the gift as an excuse for the day. Eh? What?"
"I think Harry had better not go with you, father."
"Eh? What is the matter with you, Charlotte? You are as nattert and
cross as never was. Where is your mother? I like my morning cup filled
with a smile. It helps the day through."
"Mother isn't feeling well. She had a bad dream about Harry and you, and
she is making herself sick over it. She is all in a tremble. I didn't
think mother was so foolish."
"Dreams are from somewhere beyond us, Charlotte. There's them that visit
us a-dreaming. I am not so wise as to be foolish. I believe in some
things that are outside of my short wits. Maybe we had better not go to
Windermere. We might be tempted into a boat, and dry land is a middling
bit safer. Eh? What?"
Charlotte felt as if she could endure her father's unsuspicious
happiness no longer. It was like watching a little child smiling and
prattling on the road to its mother's funeral. She put Mrs. Sandal's
breakfast on a small tray, and with this in her hand went up-stairs,
leaving Harry and the squire still at the table.
"Charlotte is a bit hurrysome this morning," he said; and Harry making
no answer, he seemed suddenly to be struck with his attitude. He looked
curiously at him a moment, and then lapsed into silence. "Harry wants
money." That was his first thought, and he began to calculate how far he
was able to meet the want. Even then, his only bitter reflection was,
that Harry should suppose it necessary to be glum about it. "A cheerful
asker is the next thing to a cheerful giver;" and to such musings he
filled his pipe, and with a shadow of offence on his large ruddy face
went into "the master's room" to smoke.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|