United States or Bolivia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Little Monsey stood clutching and twitching his fingers. Old Matthew had let the pipe drop out of his mouth, and it lay broken on the hearth. "He has fainted," said Ralph, still holding his burden; "turn that bench to the fire." No one stirred. Every one stood for the moment as if stupefied. Sim's head hung over Ralph's arm: his face was as pale as death.
"And Angus would have done it, too, and not the first time nowther," said little Reuben, with a knowing shake of the head. "Well, Matthew, what then?" said Monsey. "Weel, with that Angus he lifted up his staff, and Wilson shrieked oot afore he gat the blow. But Angus lowered his hand and said to him, says he, 'Time eneuf to shriek when ye're strucken."
He was swearing what he'd do, the ungratefu' fool; auld Wilson was a beadless body." "They say he threatened Ralph's father, Angus," said Monsey, with a perceptible shiver. "Ay, but Angus is bad to bang. I mind his dingin' ower a bull on its back. A girt man, Angus, and varra dreadfu' when he's angert."
"Ha! ha! ha!" laughs Reuben Thwaite, rather boisterously, as he comes up in time to hear the weaver's conceit. "There's one thing I never caught yet, Master Reuben," says Monsey. "And what is it?" says the little blink-eyed dalesman. "A ghost on a lime-and-mould heap!" "Ha! ha! ha!
As a good many said "Yes," an armchair was forthwith placed at one corner of the kitchen with its back to the audience. Monsey mounted it. Robbie went out of doors, and, presently re-entering with a countenance of most woeful solemnity, approached the chair, bent on one knee, and began to speak, Oh wad I were a glove upo' yon hand 'At I med kiss yon fe
Monsey in the corner looked aghast, and crept closer under the flitch of bacon that hung above him. "Men," said Ralph, "hearken here. You call it a foul thing to kill a man, and so it is." Monsey turned livid; every one held his breath. Ralph went on, "Did you ever reflect that there are other ways of taking a man's life besides killing him?" There was no response.
"And now we part," said Ralph, "for the present. Good by, both!" And he turned to go back the way he came. Monsey and Robbie had gone a few paces in the other direction, when the little schoolmaster stopped, and, turning round, cried in a loud voice, "O yes, I know it the Lion. I've been there before. I'll whisper Father Matthew that you've gone "
The breakfast was hardly more than begun when the kitchen door was partially opened, and the big head of a little man became visible on the inner side of it, the body and legs of the new-comer not having yet arrived in the apartment. "Am I late?" the head said in a hoarse whisper from its place low down on the door-jamb. It was Monsey Laman, red and puffing after a sharp run.
There were two other occupants of the parlor Reuben Thwaite, who had never been numbered among the regenerate, and had always spent his Sunday mornings in this place and fashion; and little Monsey Laman, whose duty as schoolmaster usually embraced that of sexton, bell-ringer, and pew-opener combined, but who had escaped his clerical offices on this Sabbath morning by some plea of indisposition which, as was eventually perceived, would only give way before liberal doses of the medicine kept at the sign of the Red Lion.
"Ralph not home yet?" he said, addressing Rotha. "Not yet," the girl answered, trying vainly to conceal some uneasiness. "I wonder what Robbie Anderson wanted with him? He was here twice, you know, in the morning. And the schoolmaster what could little Monsey have to say that he looked so eager? It is not his way." "Be sure it was nothing out of the common," said Rotha.
Word Of The Day