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The snow outlined with white every gable and cornice of the beautiful old wooden houses; the moonlight shone on the gilded signs, the lambs, the grapes, the eagles, and all the quaint devices that hung before the doors; covered lamps burned before the Nativities and Crucifixions painted on the walls or let into the wood-work; here and there, where a shutter had not been closed, a ruddy fire-light lit up a homely interior, with the noisy band of children clustering round the house-mother and a big brown loaf, or some gossips spinning and listening to the cobbler's or the barber's story of a neighbor, while the oil-wicks glimmered, and the hearth-logs blazed, and the chestnuts sputtered in their iron roasting-pot.
Lafe nodded as Maudlin stepped into the shop. There was an unusually aggressive expression upon the young wood gatherer's face, and Mr. Grandoken refrained from asking him to sit down. Instead he questioned: "Brought some cobblin'?" "No," said Bates. "Wanted to talk to you; that's all." "Hurry up, then, 'cause I'm busy." "Where's Jinnie?" queried Maudlin. Swift anger changed the cobbler's face.
Then this rare fellow had the rope fastened under his armpits, flung off his sea-boots and his sleeve-waistcoat, and struck off with a breast stroke that made never a splash. The spray cut his face, the lashing feathers on the tops of the waves half-blinded him, but he held doggedly on, and presently hung on to the bladderweed that fringed the Cobbler's Seat.
The window, opened to clear it, only admitted the sickly scent of decaying weed from the river to compete with the perfume of the cobbler's stock-in-trade. Ulick started up pale and astonished, and Mr. Kendal, struck with consternation, chiefly thought of taking away his wife and child from the infected atmosphere, and made signs to Albinia not to sit down; but she was eagerly compassionate.
"I mean my cobbler's son," Maria Dolores answered. "I, a Princess of the Empire, humbly offered him, a cobbler's son, my hand, heart, and fortune, and the graceless man rejected them with scorn." "That is a likely story," said Frau Brandt, wagging her chin. Her blunt brown fingers returned to their occupation. "I see your Serene Highness offering her hand."
Behind is a garden about the size of a good drawing-room, with an arbour, which is a complete sentry-box of privet. On one side a public-house, on the other a village shop, and right opposite a cobbler's stall. Notwithstanding all this "the cabin," as Boabdil says, "is convenient."
When he was opposite the cobbler's shop, the great sign caught his eye. He wagged his head as one who comes upon the place he seeks. "Have you boots for me?" he asked, with his head thrust in the door. "For everyone who needs them," was the cobbler's answer. "My body is tired," the man replied, "and my soul is tired." "For what journey do you prepare?" the cobbler asked.
For this object she gave grand dinners and large evening parties, to which were invited all who, being two or three removes from the class whose members occupy the cobbler's bench or the huckster's stall, felt themselves at liberty to look down upon the rest of the world from the pinnacle on which they imagined themselves placed.
For the rest, he pulled industriously at his cobbler's wax, unless, indeed, something outside captured his harassed mind, so that it wandered out into the sunshine. Everything out there was splashed with vivid sunlight; seen from the stuffy workshop the light was like a golden river, streaming down between the two rows of houses, and always in the same direction, down to the sea.
But Major Bugbee, to whom the cobbler's wife had been remotely akin, and who was at that time first selectman of the town, took the orphans with him to his house, where they tarried till he found good places for them. Roxana, the elder girl, went to live with a reputable farmer's wife, whose only son she afterwards married.
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