United States or Greenland ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Thee let us in, and we'll carry the things down to the cinder-hill cabin for thee. If thee won't open the door, we'll be forced to take the thatch off. 'I won't, answered Martha, 'not for the lord of the manor himself. The house is ours, and I 'ware any of you to touch it. Go down to Stephen and hear what he'll say. If thee takes the thatch off, thee shan't move me out.
Many of the houses were quite closed up and dark, but in some there was a voice of talking; and here and there Martha saw a figure stealing like herself along the deepest shadows. But she escaped without being noticed; and, once through the village, her path lay along the silent high-roads straight on to Longville. Nor did Stephen linger in the cinder-hill cabin.
Every face was overcast and grave; and many of the boys and girls were weeping, for little Nan had endeared herself to them all since she came to live at the cinder-hill cabin.
Bess dragged Martha by the arm to the top of the cinder-hill, where they could see the pit-girls clustering round the packman in the lane.
The cinder-hill cabin was situated at the mouth of an old shaft, long out of use, but said to lead into the same pit as that now worked, the entrance to which was about a quarter of a mile distant.
So Martha Fern regarded their residence on the cinder-hill with more complacency than could have been expected. The only circumstance which in her secret heart she considered a serious drawback was her very near neighbourhood to Miss Anne. 'Stephen, said Martha one Saturday night, after their work was done, 'I've been thinking how it's only thee that's trying to keep the commandments.
As Martha came over the cinder-hill, her eyes fell upon little Nan, rosy, laughing, screaming with delight as her tiny hands lifted a large stone high above her curly head, while she bent over the unguarded margin of the pit. But before Martha could move in her agony of terror, the heavy stone dropped from her small fingers, and Nan, little Nan, with her rosy, laughing face, had fallen after it.
Master doesn't want to be hard upon you; and he says, if you've no place to turn in to, you may go to the old cabin on the upper cinder-hill, till there's a cottage empty in Botfield; and we'll help thee to move the things at wunst. We're to get the roof off and the walls down afore nightfall. 'Grandfather and little Nan! screamed Martha; 'get into the house this minute!
They had been obliged to contrive some temporary seats for their visitors, for the old furniture had not yet been brought up from the cinder-hill cabin; and the only painful thoughts Martha had were the misgiving of its extreme scantiness in their house with six rooms.
I'll get you to help me carry the things down to the cinder-hill cabin. The sheep and ponies are coming down the hill, and there'll be rain afore long; and it's not fit for grandfather and little Nan to be out in it. You'll spare time from the work for that?
Word Of The Day