Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 18, 2025
"What on earth's the matter, Hastings? We raised his wages last week and we did it before the county award was out!" Hastings shook his head. "It's not wages. He says he's seen the ghost!" Janet exclaimed, and Ellesborough laughed. "What, the defunct gamekeeper?" Hastings nodded. "Vows he's seen him twice once on the hill on the green path and once disappearing round the corner of the farm.
There was nothing the least patronizing or arrogant in his manner. But there was a male note in it perhaps a touch of self-confidence which ruffled her. "Oh, I am a bad letter-writer," she said, as she got up from the table. "Shall we go and look at the cows?" They all went out into the warm September night. Ellesborough followed Rachel, cigarette in hand, his strong mouth twisting a little.
He was again crouching on the hill-side, in the shelter of the holly, watching the scene within: Rachel in that man's arms! Had the American seen him? He remembered his own backward start of alarm, as Ellesborough suddenly turned and walked towards the window. He had allowed himself, in his eagerness to see, to press too near. He had exposed himself?
Clearly some one Ellesborough probably had given a warning to the police. On what theory? ghost? tramp? or husband?
"I have a letter for Captain Ellesborough an important letter on business," said Janet. "I was to wait for an answer. But as he isn't here, where shall I leave it, so that he will be certain to get it?" "On his table, if you please, ma'am," said the soldier, opening the door of the Captain's small sitting-room "I'll see that he gets it."
She was struggling, manoeuvring, fighting, to keep the truth from George Ellesborough. It was quite uncertain whether she would succeed. Roger's word was a poor safeguard! But if she did, the truth itself would only the more certainly pursue and beat her down. And again, the utter yearning for confession and an unburdened soul came upon her intolerably.
The old English cottage, with its Tudor brick-work, and its overhanging beams, the old English labourers with the stains of English soil upon them, made the setting; and in the midst, sat the "new man," from the New World, holding the stage, just as Ellesborough the New Englander was accustomed to hold it, at Great End Farm.
No lesser thing could ever touch her now. Such are the moments of religious exaltation which cheat even the sharpest griefs of men and women. Janet would decline from her Pisgah height only too soon; but, for the time, thoughts like these gave her the strength to bear. When the house began to move again, she went down to Ellesborough.
And when the young forester had taken his departure, Mrs. Halsey stroked the red flannel round her swollen neck complacently. "I 'ad to pike 'im out soomhow. It's 'igh time she wor put to bed!" That same evening, Ellesborough left the Ralstone camp behind him about six o'clock, and hurried through the late October evening towards Great End Farm.
No doubt this boy had dreamt day and night of peace, and getting back to Germany, to "Mamma" and "Lisa" and "Hans." To die, if he was to die, by this clumsy accident, in an enemy country, was hard! Pity, passionate pity sprang up in her, and it warmed her heart to remember the pity in the face of Captain Ellesborough.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking