United States or Bhutan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Only think," she added, speaking more to herself than to me, "of John Jago finding out Miss Meadowcroft's nasty, sly, underhand ways in the house! Most men would never have noticed her." I was completely taken by surprise. Sad and severe Miss Meadowcroft a listener and a spy! What next at Morwick Farm? "Was that hint at the watchful eyes and ears, and the soft footsteps, really an allusion to Mr.
Miss Meadowcroft rose with her ghostly solemnity, and granted me my dismissal in these words: "We are early people at the farm, Mr. Lefrank. I wish you good-night." She laid her bony hands on the back of Mr. Meadowcroft's invalid-chair, cut him short in his farewell salutation to me, and wheeled him out to his bed as if she were wheeling him out to his grave.
By cutting holes in the side, and arranging a mirror from Lady Meadowcroft's dressing-bag, I completed my machine, so that, when it was turned round rapidly, one saw the procession actually taking place as if the figures were moving. The thing, in short, made a living picture like a cinematograph. A mountain stream ran past the monastery, and supplied it with water. I had a second inspiration.
They resented the reproof with needless indignation on their side, and left the room. A sour smile of satisfaction showed itself on Miss Meadowcroft's thin lips. She looked at her father; then raised her eyes sadly to the ceiling, and said, "We can only pray for them, sir." Naomi disappeared after dinner. When I saw her again, she had some news for me.
What else I was thinking of I cannot say. Why I was out of spirits I am unable to explain. I wished myself back in England: I took a blind, unreasoning hatred to Morwick Farm. Nine o'clock struck; and we all assembled again at supper, with the exception of John Jago. He was expected back to supper; and we waited for him a quarter of an hour, by Mr. Meadowcroft's own directions.
The knife was recognized by the laborers as the weapon John Jago habitually carried about with him the weapon with which he had wounded Silas Meadowcroft's hand. The buttons Naomi herself declared to have a peculiar pattern on them, which had formerly attracted her attention to John Jago's coat.
I look back at those words by the light of later events; and I pronounce them, as you will soon pronounce them, to be the words of an essentially rash man, whose hasty judgment never stopped to consider what surprises time and chance together might have in store for him. Mr. Meadowcroft's eldest son, Ambrose, was waiting at the station to drive me to the farm.
There are some of the grandest natural prospects on the face of creation in America. There is also to be found in certain States of the Union, by way of wholesome contrast, scenery as flat, as monotonous, and as uninteresting to the traveler, as any that the earth can show. The part of the country in which M. Meadowcroft's farm was situated fell within this latter category.
But to ask me to believe, after what had happened at the limekiln, that he was still living, was to ask me to take Ambrose Meadowcroft's statement for granted as a true statement of facts. I had refused to do this from the first; and I still persisted in taking that course.
Meadowcroft the elder, broken by the suffering which he had gone through, died suddenly of a rheumatic affection of the heart. A codicil attached to his will abundantly justified what Naomi had told me of Miss Meadowcroft's influence over her father, and of the end she had in view in exercising it. A life income only was left to Mr. Meadowcroft's sons.
Word Of The Day