Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 8, 2025
In the daytime he hardly saw the family; and when Megan brought in his meals she always seemed too busy in the house or among the young things in the yard to stay talking long. But in the evenings he installed himself in the window seat in the kitchen, smoking and chatting with the lame man Jim, or Mrs. Narracombe, while the girl sewed, or moved about, clearing the supper things away.
She came up to him quickly: "Its eyes are blue!" she said. Joe turned away; the back of his neck was literally crimson. Ashurst put his finger to the mouth of the little brown bullfrog of a creature in her arms. How cosy it looked against her! "It's fond of you already. Ah I Megan, everything is fond of you." "What was Joe saying to you, please?"
The whole thing was like a pleasurable dream; time and incident hung up, importance and reality suspended. Tomorrow he would go back to Megan, with nothing of all this left save the paper with the blood of these children, in his pocket. Children! Stella was not quite that as old as Megan!
Yet it was a golden morning. Full spring had burst at last in one night the "goldie-cups," as the little boys called them, seemed to have made the field their own, and from his window he could see apple blossoms covering the orchard as with a rose and white quilt. He went down almost dreading to see Megan; and yet, when not she but Mrs.
Narracombe, my aunt," had a quick, dark eye, like a mother wild-duck's, and something of the same snaky turn about her neck. "We met your niece on the road," said Ashurst; "she thought you might perhaps put us up for the night." Mrs. Narracombe, taking them in from head to heel, answered: "Well, I can, if you don't mind one room. Megan, get the spare room ready, and a bowl of cream.
With each step nearer to her, further from the Hallidays, he walked more and more slowly. How did it alter anything this sight of her? How make the going to her, and that which must come of it, less ugly? For there was no hiding it since he had met the Hallidays he had become gradually sure that he would not marry Megan.
When they were gone, he thought of the girl's soft "Oh!" of her pitying eyes, and the little wrinkle in her brow. And again he felt that unreasoning irritation against his departed friend, who had talked such rot about her. When she brought out his tea, he said: "How did you like my friend, Megan?" She forced down her upper lip, as if afraid that to smile was not polite.
Still in that resolute oblivion of the past, he took his place with them in the landau beside Halliday, back to the horses. And, then, along the sea front, nearly at the turning to the railway station, his heart almost leaped into his mouth. Megan Megan herself! was walking on the far pathway, in her old skirt and jacket and her tam-o'-shanter, looking up into the faces of the passers-by.
Drunk on his own chivalry, Ashurst went on murmuring, "It's I who am not good enough for you. Oh! Megan, when did you begin to love me?" "When I saw you in the road, and you looked at me. The first night I loved you; but I never thought you would want me." She slipped down suddenly to her knees, trying to kiss his feet.
Narracombe or the girl Megan would come and ask if he wanted anything, and he would smile and say: "Nothing, thanks. It's splendid here." Towards tea-time they came out together, bearing a long poultice of some dark stuff in a bowl, and after a long and solemn scrutiny of his swollen knee, bound it on.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking