United States or Cayman Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The common forms of Gaelic are more poetic than those of most languages, and could have originated only with a poetic people, while mistress Conal was by no means an ordinary type of her people; maugre her ill temper and gruffness, she thought as well as spoke like a poetess. This, conjoined with the gift of the second sight, had helped to her reputation as a witch.
You ought to have seen how you must look to him, and given him time. I don't perceive why you should be so gracious to old mistress Conal, and so hard upon him. Certainly you would not speak as he did to any man, but he has been brought up differently; he is not such a gentleman as you cannot help being. In a word, you ought to have treated him as an inferior, and been more polite to him."
"You too, my chief!" she cried. "You turned against the poor of your people!" "No, Mistress Conal," he answered. "I am too much your friend to let you kill yourself!" "We have orders, Macruadh, to set fire to the hovel," said one of the men, touching his hat respectfully. "They'll roast my black one!" shrieked the old woman.
"I am sorry, mistress Conal; but we'll not be losing them," returned the laird gently, and began to feel about the road for the fallen peats. "How many were there, do you think, of them that fell?" he asked, rising after a vain search. "How should I be knowing!
The same instant they heard a groan, and then first discovered the old woman in bed, seemingly very ill. Ian went up to her. "What is the matter with you, Mistress Conal?" he asked, addressing her in English because of the ladies. But in reply she poured out a torrent of Gaelic, which seemed to the girls only grumbling, but was something stronger.
And if then she passed to imprecation, she would not curse like an ordinary woman, but like a poetess, gaining rather than losing dignity. She would rise to the evil occasion, no hag, but a largely-offended sibyl, whom nothing thereafter should ever appease. To forgive was a virtue unknown to Mistress Conal.
Suddenly Mistress Conal broke out in a wild yet awful speech, wherein truth indeed was the fuel, but earthly wrath supplied the prophetic fire. Her friends suspended their talk, and her foes their work, to listen. English is by no means equally poetic with the Gaelic, regarded as a language, and ill-serves to represent her utterance.
Brander and himself by feeding wild animals instead of men. To tell such land-owners that they are simply running a tilt at the creative energy, can be of no use: they do not believe in God, however much they may protest and imagine they do. The next day but one, he sent Mistress Conal the message that she must be out of her hut, goods and gear, within a fortnight.
When the fire began to run up the roof, Mistress Conal broke from him, and darted to the door. Every one rushed to seize her, Mr. Palmer with the rest. "Blackie! Blackie! Blackie!" she shrieked like a madwoman.
Persuading herself it was only a cat, she tried to sleep, and at length succeeded. When she woke in the morning, the first thing she did was to go out, fully expecting to find the cat lying at the foot of the wall. No cat was there. She went then as usual to attend to the old woman. Mistress Conal was dead and cold. The clan followed her body to the grave, and the black cat was never seen.
Word Of The Day