United States or Bosnia and Herzegovina ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Sumfit, a kindly, humble relative of the farmer's, widowed out of Sussex, very loving and fat; the cook to the household, whose waist was dimly indicated by her apron-string; and, to aid her outcries, the silently-protesting Master Gammon, an old man with the cast of eye of an antediluvian lizard, the slowest old man of his time a sort of foreman of the farm before Robert had come to take matters in hand, and thrust both him and his master into the background.
Sumfit and poor old sleepy Anthony the account of the miraculous discovery of Sedgett's wickedness, which had vindicated all one hoped for from Above; as also the narration of the stabbing of her boy, and the heroism and great-heartedness of Robert. Rhoda listened to her for a space, and went to her sister's door again; but when she stood outside the kitchen she found all voices silent within.
At last, she was not to be restrained from crying out, almost tearfully, "When do you think you'll have done, Mas' Gammon?" Thus pointedly addressed, Master Gammon laid down his knife and fork. He half raised his ponderous, curtaining eyelids, and replied, "When I feels my buttons, marm." After which he deliberately fell to work again. Mrs. Sumfit dropped back in her chair as from a blow.
You'll never say prayers, if you do," said Mrs. Sumfit. The remark engendered a notion in the farmer's head, that Anthony promised to be particularly prayerless. "You've been and spent a night at the young squire's, I hear, brother Tony. All right and well. No complaints on my part, I do assure ye.
Sumfit smote her hands "Oh, my goodness, my poor head! but you shan't slip away, Mas' Gammon; no, try you ever so much. Drownded he was, and eight days in the sea, which you told me over a warm mug of ale by the fire years back. And I do believe them dumplings makes ye obstinate; for worse you get, and that fond of 'em, I sh'll soon not have enough in our biggest pot.
Gammon was obstinate, but it was not he who, after taking a lead, and making the farm dependent on his lead, had absconded with the brains and energy of the establishment. Such reflections passed through the farmer's mind. Rhoda and Mrs. Sumfit came together down the trim pathway; and Robert now had a clear charge against Master Gammon. He recommended an immediate departure.
Robert marked him, and the blush as well. It was Algernon, upon a livery-stable hack. His countenance expressed a mighty disappointment. The farmer saw no one. The ingratitude and treachery of Robert, and of Mrs. Sumfit and Master Gammon, kept him brooding in sombre disgust of life. He remarked that the cart jolted a good deal.
Chief among the incidents was, that Mrs. Sumfit had really seen, and only wanted, by corroboration of Master Gammon, to be sure she had positively seen, Anthony Hackbut on the skirts of the funeral procession. Master Gammon, however, was no supporter of conjecture. What he had thought he had thought; but that was neither here nor there.
They may have a tragic blood-hue, as with Dahlia's; but they will never have any warm, and fresh, and nourishing sweetness the juice which is in a single blade of grass. A longing came upon Rhoda to go and handle butter. She wished to smell it as Mrs. Sumfit drubbed and patted and flattened and rounded it in the dairy; and she ran down the slope, meeting her father at the gate.
Sumfit; "and do be good creatures, and begin about my Dahly, and where she got that Bumptious gownd, and the bonnet with blue flowers lyin' by on the table: now, do!" Rhoda coughed. "And she wears lavender gloves like a lady," Mrs. Sumfit was continuing. Rhoda stamped on her foot.
Word Of The Day